


Out of His Depth

by in_fini



Series: Out of His Depth AU [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_fini/pseuds/in_fini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Kink Meme.</p><p>AU where all the kids and trolls meet up in the Veil.  Dave Strider and Tavros Nitram help each other with their problems, and maybe fall in love along the way.</p><p>Huge thanks to Siadea for the beta; this would've been so much worse without her help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You hang back as the other trolls rush to greet the humans. It’s not as if any of them want to meet you anyways, and plus, you want to avoid –

“Hey, I only count eleven of you! I thought there were twelve?”

“I’VE ONLY JUST MET YOU AND YOUR STUPIDITY IS AT LEAST FIFTY TIMES MORE APPARENT IN REAL LIFE BECAUSE THERE ARE CLEARLY – oh wait, where’s Tavros?”

Oh no. You look around wildly, and your horn gets caught in a stray tangle of wires, and in yanking it free you tear them right out of the wall, sputtering sparks. You watch the spastic twitching of the wires, backing up slowly, because you know, you know every eye is on you, why are you so stupid and clumsy and you can feel the heat rise to your face –

“Hey.”

Oh noooooo-

But you look up anyway, and then a little more, because Dave Strider is a little bit taller than you, and the black lenses stare back at you. No expression.

And you can only imagine what your own expression is, probably terrified, because he is about to lay down some trolling on your ass with inexplicable human innuendo that still makes you feel dirty although you have no idea what it means.

“uHHH,”

“What the hell are those.”

“w-wHAT?”

“The coat rack coming out the sides of your head, bro.”

“uHHHHHHHHHH,,,” You squeeze your eyes shut, ready to cower.

“I like them.”

“,,,,,wHAT?”

And then he’s ruffling your mohawk, and you open your eyes, one after the other. So you notice Vriska tossing her hair back in your direction, arm slung possessively over the black-haired boy and hissing maliciously, “Taaaaaaaavros, you messed up again???????? How a8out you try N8 to spoil the humans' first five minutes on this rock?”

“i'M, uHH, sORRY,” and you want to turn and run, although you know Rufio would be so disappointed in you, but you can’t because suddenly an arm is slung over your shoulders too.

“Sorry for what? Listen spiderbitch, don’t mess with my good friend and bipedal Texas longhorn. He and I,” and he holds up his other hand in a fist, pointed in your direction, “are bros.”

You stare at his impassive face. You don’t think you’ve ever heard a voice more monotone.

Now he looks at you. “I have never been left hanging before.”

And with a squeak Rufio would have been ashamed to hear, you raise your shaking hand and give him a bunp.

\-----

You are in the comestibles chamber, digging through the shelves for something sweet to munch on. Sweets make you feel better. Sucrose makes the Rufio in you stand up and say to the world, “i, aM NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH, tOO MUCH, iF YOU PLEASE,”

You have just stuffed an entire cacao-studded flour disk in your mouth when the monotone voice startles you.

“Sup, man. Why’d you run away so fast?”

Naturally, you jolt, turn too quickly, slam a horn into an open cupboard door and narrowly missed knocking Dave Strider’s sunglasses off his face, which he avoided by smoothly dipping under the offending organ. You also start choking.

Suddenly there’s a great _wham_ onto your back and bits of baked flour disk explode over the floor and your chitinous windhole is open again. You take a great gasping breath and – slowly this time – turn to look at Strider.

“wHY, aRE YOU FOLLOWING ME AROUND,”

“Was looking for a bathroom to wipe off Pyrope-spittle, but then I heard the unmistakable sound of wild bull mayhem and tracked it like a great Indian hunter, light of foot and keen of ear, to this room where I found what sounds like a herd of buffalo but looks more like an extremely anxious troll with a bitching mohawk.”

You wish you could understand some of the things he says. Wait, maybe you don’t. Or do you? Humans are so confusing.

“You were the troll who tried to beat me in a rap-off, weren’t you.”

 _No one must ever know._ “n-nO, tHAT WAS SOMEONE, eLSE, i DON’T RAP,”

Then he is so close you can see terrified Tavros’s in each lens, and he whispers, “Liar.”

Then he’s at the door, looking back over his shoulder. “Do you like music?”

When you stutter in reply, he motions with his hand, so you follow him.

\-----

[You have no idea what you are listening to.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cVbw8RZOfM)

Dave had found an empty room and spent an hour setting up a complicated sound system, further complicated by the fact that his Earth plugs were incompatible with Veil outlets, making you lead him to the alchemizer to fix that problem. And then, finally settled, weird industrial noises are coming out of the speakers and Dave keeps casting glances at you – you think, because the lenses move fractionally towards you – and you freeze because _you do not know what to do._

“Don’t like it much, do you.”

Your eyes flicker wildly between the floor and the inscrutable shades. If you hurt his feelings maybe he will do whatever it is he is planning to do sooner, and you do not think you would like that. “uHHH, iT’S NOT REALLY, bAD, bUT REALLY, iT’S FINE, i CAN LISTEN TO THIS, aLL DAY,”

“What do you like.”

“uHHH,”

“Seriously dude, what do you like. Favorite movie?”

The answer is automatic, rolling off your tongue before you realize it. “In which a Magical Flying Troll Visits Several Young Wrigglers Living In the Same Hive and Teaches Them to Fly With His Magical Lusus, Taking Them to Neverland Where They Join a Band of Similarly Young Savages Who Get Kidnapped by Evil Pirates, Prompting the Protagonist to Become More Mature and Rescue the Wrigglers From the Pirates. Contains One Ticking Primeval Reptile, One Robotic Hand, Multiple Rescue Scenes. Rated W, Safe for Wrigglers.”

About halfway through you realize he’s staring, one eyebrow raised in incredulity, but you plow on anyways because that’s what Rufio would do, and this is your favorite movie and you won’t let anyone stop you from finishing the title, probably. Then he moves to his laptop and puts on the most beautiful music you have ever heard.

[This must be what pity feels like.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfnpF6qBL9w&feature=related)

\-----

Far too soon, Terezi finds you two.

Dave had put on a playlist full of works of art, one after another. Captain Li Shang almost rivaled Rufio in his masterful rendition of “I’ll Make A Man Out of You.” “Kiss the Girl” made you feel…awkward, because you do not want to kiss the girl, you have never wanted to kiss the girl, and why can’t Vriska understand? “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” left you seeing the world through a shimmering orange veil.

Dave doesn’t speak. He just watches, amused when you wipe away tears, twitching a corner of his mouth when you crawl over to the speakers and just hold them, because you want to _feel_ the music just as much as you want to hear it.

You are pretty sure you worship him. You don’t know why he’s doing this. You don’t know what he wants from you, but you know one thing, and that is if you do not watch out he will do something terrible to you, and that is why you should not worship him.

That’s pretty much been the drill with every cool person you’ve ever met. And Dave Strider is _sooo cool_.

Terezi comes bouncing in and you can tell she’s a little miffed. “D4V3 D4V3 D4V3!” She bounces right up to him as he’s sitting on the floor, leaning back on his hands and legs stretched out in front of him. “D4V3 1 4M NOT F1N1SH3D SM3LL1NG 4ND L1CK1NG YOUR CH3RRY R3DN3SS 4ND M4RSHM4LLOWN3SS! WH4T 4R3 YOU DO1NG H1D1NG SUCH D3L1C1OUSN3SS FROM M3, 1T 1S WH4T HUM4NS C4LL CRU3L 4ND UNUSU4L PUN1SHM3NT!” She presses her nose right up against his, and you feel white hot heat searing your insides, from your gut up to your throat where you clamp your mouth shut so as not to let it out.

“Hey there Lickitung. Just showing my man Tavros some of the best music Earth had to offer. Broadening his horizons with some cross-universal music exchange. Soon we’ll engage in an honest-to-God jam session, and sentient species everywhere will weep a single tear at the magic that is this pan-universal diplomatic success. It will be an example in inter-universe relations classes, held up as the ultimate-”

“D4V3!” She seems a little perplexed. Then the shark’s grin spreads across her face again. “D4V3 4S L3G4L 4MB4SS4DOR FROM 4LT3RN14 1 4M TH3 LOG1C4L P3RSON TO GO TO FOR D1PLOM4T1C H3LP! DO NOT WORRY FOR 1 W1LL SHOW YOU 4LT3RN14N W4YS 4ND 1NTRODUC3 YOU TO OUR H1GHLY 4DV4NC3D L3G4L SYST3M!”

She pulls him up and, coolkid that he is, he follows her out the door, responding with another long metaphor. You feel bereft.  
But before he is dragged away for good, he looks back and says, “You can use this stuff whenever you like, Tavbro.” And then he’s gone.

You don’t know what to think. No one has entrusted you with anything of theirs before. And though you don’t know much about electronics it looks like this stuff costs a fortune. Or at least a fortune in grist. You don’t know. You’re afraid to touch it. So you close the door and lock it on your way out, carefully pocketing the key to give it to him later.


	2. Chapter 2

You’re kicking your robotic feet in your respiteblock, turning over the key in your hands. You look up at your life-sized poster of Rufio, which was pretty much the first thing you ever alchemized.

“rUFIO, wHAT SHOULD I DO, aBOUT DAVE,”

Rufio looks at you fondly, the way you wished people (not Vriska) would look at you. You close your eyes and _imagine_.

“sON, iF I WERE YOU, i WOULD WATCH THE HELL OUT OF THIS SLICK MOFO, bECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WITH TROLLS, mUCH LESS WITH HUMANS, wHAT THEIR ANGLE IS, aND BECAUSE I PITY YOU, iN A WAY REMINISCENT OF LUSII, i AM TELLING YOU TO WATCH YOUR BACK BECAUSE GETTING HURT, aGAIN, iS NOT WORTH IT,”

You are sad. But you know Rufio speaks the truth.

“dO NOT ANTAGONIZE HIM, tHOUGH, jUST WATCH OUT,”

And then wild screeching erupts from the speakers installed in every room on the veil, and Karkat begins talking.

“ALRIGHT YOU GRUBFUCKING IDIOTS, WE ARE GETTING TOGETHER AT 1800 IN THE MESS HALL TO A) SUPPLY OURSELVES WITH NUTRITION AND B) PLAN OUT HOW TO TAKE DOWN LORD ENGLISH, AND IF ANY OF YOU THINK YOU’RE TOO SPECIAL TO SHOW UP, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN, GRAB YOU BY THE SHAME GLOBES, AND DRAG YOU THERE MYSELF. AND I WILL NOT BE HAPPY ABOUT DOING IT. SO YOU NOOKSNIFF-prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”

You hear giggling. “Guys, guys! When you touch Karkat’s horns _he purrs_!”

You cannot breathe. Karkat, your palhoncho, is getting molested on air.

“YOU RAPIST, GET YOUR NASTY PINK HANDS OFF ME – NO, DON’T YOU DARE – FUCK YOU EGBEERRRRRRT”

Whooshing sounds are coming from the speakers now, as well as giggles and purrs and snarls. The poor guy. Your expanding and collapsing vascular pump aches for him.

“Hey Egderp, he called you a rapist. Have you ever thought that perhaps their horns are like giant nipples?”

The whooshing abruptly stops.

“Karkat _I’m so sorry_ -“

“Whoa dudes, you can keep making out, but the mic is still on, here let me be a hero and get that for you-“

With a click, you are left in silence again. Wide-eyed, you turn to Rufio.

“oH GOD, yOU WERE RIGHT, tHE HUMANS WANT TO MOLEST US, aND DAVE WANTS TO MOLEST ME, iN PARTICULAR,”

You don’t think you can make it to the meeting. Your robotic knees are shaking. It’d be worse to be dragged in by the shame globes though. So you go.

\-----

You slink in behind Nepeta and Equius. Equius is ignoring you, sweating, as usual. Nepeta gives you a friendly pounce and purr, then continues arguing with Equius about her shipping activities.

You wish you had more unobtrusive horns, small like Terezi’s or even nubby like Karkat’s. Your horns are just too big and in-your-face, a challenge to more violently-minded trolls. Pretty much all trolls are more violently-minded than you. It makes it hard, sometimes. You also dislike them because it is hard to sneak into places without a)banging into things and b) getting noticed.

You notice the dark lenses swivel in your direction and freeze, like an antler-beast in the middle of the vehicular causeway watching an oncoming four-wheeled transport motor vehicle.

He turns back to the tense conversation between him, Karkat, John, and Aradia. You give a shaky exhale and slip into a seat near Gamzee, who is making pies. Normal pies. Gamzee is surprisingly good in the kitchen.

“HeY ThErE My fAvOrItE MoThErFuCkEr, WhAt's aLl uP WiTh yOu?”

“i, aM PRETTY OKAY, i THINK, nOT REALLY SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE THAN, yOU KNOW, uSUAL,”

He slips two steaming cherry pies out of the oven and puts two more in their place. “YoU DoN'T LoOk lIkE YoU'Ve sEeN AnY MoThErFuCkInG MiRaClEs lAtElY, mY LoNgHoRnEd fRiEnD.”

That Gamzee. So perceptive. You can never hide anything from him. “wELL, i'M STILL ADJUSTING, yOU KNOW, tO THE HUMANS BEING HERE, nOT THAT I DISLIKE THEM, oR ANYTHING, jUST A LITTLE ODD, aROUND HERE NOW, eSPECIALLY WITH, uH,”

“HuMaNs, MaN. MoThErFuCkInG MiRaClEs.”

“uHHH, yEAH I GUESS SO, iF YOU SAY SO, bUT THE DAVE HUMAN, kIND OF, sCARES ME, a LITTLE BIT, iS ALL,”

Gamzee’s entire demeanor changes. He leans over the table, eyes suddenly clear. “Dave Strider is the worst motherfucker. THE WORST FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER. He better not speak to me. OR FUCKING COME NEAR ME. Or he’ll regret it. HE’LL MOTHERFUCKING REGRET IT.”

Karkat, glancing around the room, notices you leaning back in unease as Gamzee gets closer and closer into your personal bubble, which Rufio tells you never to let people invade, but they do anyways. He interrupts the conversation to shoosh and pap Gamzee into oblivion, while ranting:

“FUCK TAVROS, IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK TO NOT BRING UP CERTAIN SUBJECTS AROUND MY MOIRAIL? CAN YOUR INFERIOR THINK PAN PROCESS THAT REQUEST? WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOU TO UNDERSTAND THIS? USE TROLL-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT TAVROS? DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOCK YOU EVERY TIME YOU MAKE ANOTHER STUPID MISTAKE?”

Why does this always happen to you? You just wanted to talk to your friend. You never mean to do these kinds of things. You hate it. You hate how you always mess things up. You hate yourself.

Black lenses slide into your field of vision again. You realize you’ve slid off the chair and backed away, step by step. He takes a look at you, then a look at Gamzee – who’s staring contentedly at the glaciation unit – and Karkat, who’s still glaring at you, albeit more confusedly now.

“You got no call to be treating Nitram like that.”

You’re not sure, but you think his voice is even more flat. What does that mean? Is he more serious or less? Is this for irony’s sake?

Karkat, predictably, gets more heated. When he gets angry he raises his shoulders up, and it makes him look like an angry meow-beast, which is actually not as funny to you as it might be to others.

“STAY OUT OF THIS, STRIDER. DON’T INTERFERE IN TROLL BUSINESS.”

He stands up straighter, slides his legs a little apart. His hands hang loosely at his sides, but there seems to be a current of electricity running through him.

“Nitram here is my business. Want to make a federal fucking issue of it?”

You are so confused. Why is Strider defending you? Why does he look as if he’s ready to fight? What does he want?  
Why would he do this for you?

Karkat looks equally confused. But he backs down. Gamzee’s calm now, and there’s no federal fucking issues at all. He goes to the front of the room, the altercation barely noticed in the turmoil of the crowded room, and starts shouting at everybody to shut their gaping windholes right the fuck up.

Strider loosens up and turns to you. You’re too bewildered to be afraid. He pats you on the back, and the poker face looks more natural, less tense.

“ ‘S okay, Nitram. I got this.”

He walks over to John, saying something that makes him blush. You think you’re blushing too.

\-----

You’re distracted the entire time Karkat is talking. You catch a few snatches here and there, but you are too busy thinking.

You’ve noticed that Dave Strider acts differently around everyone else. Cool, collected, stepping in occasionally for a cutting remark or witty simile, keeping his emotional distance. Closer to Rose, the two often communicating with a glance or twitch of facial muscles. Almost indulgent towards John and Jade, talking as if their derpiness is an infinite source of suffering but acting like he enjoys their company, always aware of what they are doing. Quieter around the trolls (with the exception of Terezi – they chatter away, best friends for lyfe), but not disdainful, like you’d thought he would be. Just watching, collecting information – that’s what it looks like to you, anyway.

You feel slightly disturbed that you’re watching him so much. He’s probably noticed. The sunglasses move infinitesimally in your direction. You jerk your eyes back to Karkat.

“-SO DAVE AND ARADIA WILL BE OUR POINTS, SINCE LORD ENGLISH CAN ONLY BE KILLED BY EXPLOITING TIME GLITCHES. GOD TIERS – THAT’S YOU, SPIDERFREAK AND EGBERT – WILL BE MAIN OFFENSE. POINTS PICK TWO BUDDIES. GOD-TIERS, ONE, AND EVERYONE ELSE PARTNER UP FOR MINION INTERFERENCE AND SUPPORT. GOT IT?”

Jade pipes up, trilling. “John, you don’t have to pick me, I’m sure you’d rather be with Karkat for this!”

Identical flushes arise on both their faces. John shifts uncomfortably, staring at his blue shoes, while Karkat yells, “PARTNERS WILL BE CHOSEN BY PEOPLE MENTIONED, AND PEOPLE BETTER NOT GET ALL HUFFY ABOUT IT BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE FOR WHAT WE’RE TRYING TO DO AND YOU NOOKSTAINS HAD BETTER BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU GET.”

Dave drawls, “I seem to remember you saying something about interspecies makeouts. I can’t quite remember what it was, mind repeating it?”

John squeaks and punches Dave; Karkat yells even louder; the entire meeting devolves into arguments about who’s going to be partners with whom and jibes about Karkat’s and John’s very public makeout session.

You sit by yourself in the corner. The only person you think would want to partner up with you is Gamzee, and Gamzee’s busy opening the glaciation unit’s door and watching the light turn on and off, muttering “MiRaClEs.”

Then Dave materializes at your elbow, drawing a surprised squeak from you. You look up at him and fumble for something to say.

“i, uHHH, hAVE THE KEY TO THE ROOM WITH YOUR STUFF, i DIDN'T WANT TO JUST LEAVE IT, tHERE WHERE ANYONE COULD TOUCH IT, sO, hERE IT IS,”

He takes the key, brushing against your fingers; accidentally or not, you can’t tell, but you’re going to err on the side of “on-purpose.”

“Thanks, bro. This kinda concern for my worldly possessions is right touching.”

You can feel the blush rising again and stammer out “sO, wHO ARE YOU, gOING TO PARTNER WITH,”

He slouches against the wall, poker face the tiniest bit more amused. “Was gonna ask you, Tavbro, but if you’ve got other plans I’ll just have to go somewhere else, heartbroken, trailing my feet as thunderstorms gather above me and drizzle out drops of misery wrung from the eyes of ten thousand orphans sentenced to be chimney sweeps for the very short rest of their lives.”  
You don’t know what to think. So typically your mouth just blathers without you noticing.

“i, dON'T THINK I WOULD BE, tHE BEST CHOICE FOR THAT KIND OF, wORK, bECAUSE I, wELL, aM NOT REALLY THE BEST, fIGHTER OR ANYTHING, i MOSTLY JUST, cOMMUNED WITH THE IMPS AND STUFF, aND I'M KIND OF CLUMSY, aND BAD AT FOLLOWING ORDERS, aND NOT VERY STRONG, aND NOT AS LEVELED UP AS SOME PEOPLE ARE, eVEN THOUGH I DID A LOT OF SIDEQUESTS,”

He holds up a hand.

“Hold up there, longhorn. Let me get a word into that veritable stampede that is escaping out your mouth, dead set on trampling some poor soul to death.” Why do his metaphors always confuse you?

“If I wore a baseball cap, I’d be turning it round right now, shouting out ‘Tavros! I choose you!’ And obviously you’d leap out, ready to fight alongside your best human bro Dave Strider, right?”

“,,,,IS THAT, a TROLL-KEMON REFERENCE,”

He twitches the corner of his mouth more noticeably and you feel inordinately proud of yourself.

“Yes it is, Tavros. Yes it is.”

“oKAY,”

This time when he holds his fist out, you bunp it right away.


	3. Chapter 3

It was quite some time later before everything was settled.

Dave had chosen Jade in addition to you, and you found her a stimulating conversation partner, and forgiving of your obviously misguided redrom flirting, and also of your mistaken murder of her grandfather, and your inability to apologize due to misconceptions about Rufio’s nature. She is very nice. You like her a lot.

You kinda wish she wasn’t the obvious choice for Dave’s matesprit, although naturally you don’t care about his quadrants at all. Not even a little bit interested.

In the background Eridan is flipping the fuck out because no one wants to partner with him and Gamzee is the only one left. He and Karkat are yelling at each other; rather, Karkat is yelling while Eridan talks patronizingly and makes incredibly offensive hemophobic slurs. Vriska and Terezi, meanwhile, are rekindling their rivalry, each insisting that they could wreak the most havoc. Kanaya and Rose sit in a corner, identical secretive smiles upon their faces. Aradia, in her bright god-tier outfit, calmly discusses strategy with Sollux and Equius – who doesn’t look like he’s paying much attention, focused as he is on the towel he keeps pressing to his face.

Karkat’s voice cuts through the din: “WE HAVE UNTIL FUTURE DAVE AND ARADIA TELL US WE SHOULD BE READY. I’M TRUSTING YOU TWO WITH THE TIME LOOPS. EVERYBODY TRAINS AT LEAST EIGHT HOURS A DAY, EVERY DAY, FROM NOW UNTIL THEN. WE DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH TIME WE HAVE, SO ASSUME WE HAVE NONE TO WASTE. THIS MEETING IS ADJOURNED.”

Jade bounces up, a look of slight unease on her face. “I think I’m going to go talk to Feferi…I had an odd dream…see you later Tavros!!!”

You barely manage a wave before she’s bounding towards Nepeta and Feferi. Everybody is leaving, some in better moods than others. Karkat is leaving too, with John. He is a good leader, you reflect. He got the entire squabbling mess of you through Sgrub, after all. He deserves whatever happiness he can get.

Dave appears beside you as you’re walking to the door, and you don’t startle quite as much as you did before. “Where’re you headed, Tavman? Why don’t I walk you home? Maybe carry your books too?”

“i, uHHH, dON'T HAVE ANY BOOKS,”

“So that means I can walk you home?” And he swings into step by your side.

You have to ask. You can’t not ask. “wHY, dID YOU STAND UP FOR ME, bACK THERE? kARKAT WAS JUST YELLING, hE DOES THAT A LOT, aND I DO MAKE MISTAKES, oFTEN, aS WELL, sO, uHHHH,”

The silence stretches. So do the hallways, extending into the distance, and it seems like you’ll never get to the end of them. You almost hope they don’t.

“Wasn’t the content I took issue with, though I don’t know much about troll relationships. Was the tone. Nobody has the right to speak to anyone like that. Even if they do make lots of mistakes.”

His voice is quiet, with only a hint of the Texan drawl you are assured he speaks with; modulated, rhythmic, like the susurrus of the sea. You think you could listen to it forever. More than the songs he let you listen to, even.

“You’re alright, Tavros, the way you are.”

You’ve both stopped, and you watch his lips as they form around your name. Soft and delicate, so unlike troll lips; voice soft like velvet, unlike the rough and guttural sounds of troll voices. You realize that you are irrevocably, unconditionally, flushed for Dave Strider.

He breaks the moment first, looking down the hallway. “I’m just off this corridor. See you in the morning – whatever that means on this rock – at 0600, the VR room. Sweet dreams, Nitram.”

He walks, and he doesn’t look back. He wouldn’t have seen you slump against the wall, feeling as though there’s a vise in your chest. Couldn't have known that you allowed yourself a minute to feel the joy that comes with finding your matesprit, so that you would have something to sustain you in the weeks to come, knowing that he could never pity you.

\-----

It’s the little things that make you pity him.

He hardly has any free time; in addition to the 8 hours he puts in with you and Jade, he spends hours poring over plans with Karkat and John and Aradia; plans, and secondary plans if the first ones fail, and tertiary plans if those fail too.

But he doesn’t let that get in the way of his training with you and Jade. No matter how early you head to the virtual reality room, he’s always there first, sharpening a shitty half-sword or goggled in, practicing alone. When everyone is there, he runs as many diverse simulations as he can, so you can practice strifing. (During the game, people mostly fought alone, or in pairs. Now they have to learn to fight cooperatively while following a plan. You admire Karkat for his leadership in this respect.) You practice in your threesome; in conjunction with other groups, especially Aradia’s; and then alone, in preparation if the worst should come.

Dave never yells at mistakes. He never stops a simulation until every player is dead, or all the enemies are/the objective is achieved. And then, he teaches you the finer points of combat: stance, techniques, tactics. When he is demonstrating, he moves like flowing water; so does his voice. When he’s correcting your posture or your grip on your lance, his cool hands feel like fine silk (which you learned about from Kanaya, in a conversation that may or may not have been about Dave). He doesn’t spend this much time with Jade, but you know it’s because she’s already so good at what she does. You know you need the help, and you never, ever protest when Dave helps you. You just go back to your respiteblock and practice, trying to make your robotic legs do even a little bit of what Dave’s legs do, to move and strife like Dave. You figure that’s the best way to fulfill your role.

And Dave has made it clear what your roles are. You and Jade have to protect him, so he can do what needs to be done. You’re not sure, but you think you notice a distinct feeling of regret in his voice. You somehow think that he would rather be fighting ( _alongside you, you hope_ ), even that he’d rather be one of the expendable people (you know who they are – they may or may not include you) then bear all this responsibility.

He tells you how doomed timelines work too.

“If Lord English attacks us without any warning from future mes or Aradias, then we’re in the doomed timeline. I’ll try to stay with you as long as I can, but at the very least, either Aradia or I have to get back alive to warn the alpha timeline. So if I’m suddenly gone…you know why.”

You wonder how many Daves have been sacrificed in doomed timelines to preserve the alpha. You wonder how many you’ll ever know about. ( _why are you thinking about that? It’s not like you’re Dave’s confidante or anything_ )

You know though, that doomed Tavros will not mind being abandoned, because all Tavroses, in all timelines, would willingly die if Dave Strider could live even a moment longer.

Sometimes he comes to your respiteblock, often at ungodly hours of the night, presumably when the planning meetings are finished. Often, you’re still awake, trying to express the same grace in your movements - _so you’ll have that to hold on to when he’s gone_ \- so you can help Dave.

Sometimes you both go to the music room, and Dave will put on the music he calls dubstep – which you are strangely fond of now – and the songs he calls Disney. Once, when it was very late and you were asleep when he came, he broke out the turntables and spent an hour mixing songs for you, while you listened entranced. His face was paler than usual that night, drawn and tired, and there might have been tracks on his face, but it was dimly lit and you couldn’t be sure.

After, while you were still under the spell of Dave’s music, he came to you and hugged you, hard. You didn’t know what to do, but you put your arms around him as well and closed your eyes, feeling the lean muscles shift under your hands and smelling the clean scent of his hair. (It reminded you of the meadows surrounding your hive, wide and inviting under the double moonlight; like sweet grass and wildflowers.)

He said, “It’s hard, growing up. It’s hard and no one understands.”

You know. You told him so.

Then he sniffed, stood up. His sunglasses had slipped down his ( _elegant_ ) nose, and with your excellent night vision you thought they looked red. But then he pushed them back up, gave his patented Strider Irony Grin ™, and walked out.

You think that maybe, Dave Strider has put on the coolkid act for so long, that everyone has forgotten that he’s still a kid. And that he hasn’t forgotten, but now people expect him to be the coolkid and to do impossible things, ingenious things, like prototyping a future self. And that he’s willing to work himself to the bone to keep doing the impossible, because entire universe(s) depend on it. And that sometimes, everything is just too much, too fast, for a coolkid to handle.

It’s things like that that make you pity Dave Strider.

\-----

You’re not sure when it happens, but the voice in your head changes from _What would Rufio do?_ to _What would Dave do?_ And you find that it helps to picture Dave in your head – unflappable, self-possessed ( _that time when you and Dave leaned against the wall and you listened to him snark at everyone coming out the mess hall door_ ) – when you need to assert yourself.

You cornered Equius in the hallways one day, and told him that you needed a steed.

“D --> Lowb100d, how dare you speak in such a manner to me?”

“i, jUST NEED A MOUNT, lIKE A, uHHH, eQUINE ONE,”

At that he flushed a brilliant blue and began sweating again. Sometimes he really disturbs you.

“D --> Horses are e%quisite creatures, unfit for someone of such low b100d as you, and –“

“yES, wELL, i NEED ONE, iN ORDER TO STRIFE PROPERLY, aND KARKAT TOLD EVERYBODY YOU WOULD, bE WILLING TO MAKE THEM THINGS, sO, i AM TELLING YOU, wITH KARKAT AS PROXY, tHAT YOU SHOULD MAKE ME A STEED, aND, uHH, mAKE IT AS AWESOME AS POSSIBLE,”

He whispered “D --> I need a towel” and ran off. You weren’t sure if it worked, but when you saw Equius again, during strifing practice, he told you that he was working on a suitable mount before sweatily disemboweling a tar imp.

Dave looked at the both of you and raised an eyebrow. You gave him a nervous smile; he twitched the corner of his mouth at you.

\-----

Dave likes to eat with you in the mess hall. He teaches you about Earth culture – who knew that rulers on Earth were selected by rap-off? And that movie stars were paid in “bipches and hos”? Not you – and you tell him about Alternian culture. It’s odd, but he reacts to the strangest things; things you’ve accepted long ago.

He likes to ask about the hemospectrum, for one. You like to indulge him by answering all his questions, even though you’ve already answered them before. He says he likes to hear it “from your punk lips in your Jason-Statham-with-throat-cancer voice.” But when you talk about it, he’ll get quiet, and sometimes he refuses to finish eating, and you have to tell him to eat his food or he’ll faint.

“It’s nice to know you care so much about my body, Tavros.”

Even you caught that one, and the resulting orange flush made him give a small chuckle – and keep eating.

\-----

Today you are partnering up with Eridan and Gamzee in the VR room. You like strifing with Gamzee, even if he does get distracted often; but that’s what you’re there for, to protect him _and Dave_ and anyone else you are fighting with.  
It’s Eridan you have a problem with.

He keeps nudging into your territory, when he should really be hanging back with Jade, taking out enemies from afar. She doesn’t like it either, and is constantly yelling out “Get the fuck back here, fuckass!” He keeps killing enemies that you could have gotten, that were really supposed to be your kills, and not tending to his own, leaving Jade with twice as much work.

Dave, of course, notices too. You don’t even flinch when his familiar raglan shirt appears in your peripheral vision.

“Want me to take care of that Harry Potter douchebag?”

You shake your head no. Dave shouldn’t have to take care of you; he has things to do. Anyway, you’ve handled Eridan before.  
So Dave (reluctantly) flashsteps away and within five minutes Eridan is riding your ass again.

Afterwards you don’t wait around for the play-by-play analysis; you are tired of Eridan, and Dave signals that you can go.   
You intend to go visit Equius and see how Jolly Roger is coming along (that is what you are preemptively naming your mount, after Captain Hook’s pirate ship in the delightful human movie). However, you take a wrong turn and going back around the corner, you run into Eridan.

“wHAT, aRE YOU DOING HERE?”

“Wwhy tavvros,” _you hate the way he says your name, you hate it_ “I wwas just wwonderin wwhere you wwere off to.” He leans forward, backing you into the wall, and puts a hand over your head. So typical.

“eRIDAN, i AM STILL NOT INTERESTED, iN YOU, iN ANY QUADRANT”

“Wwell wwhat about Davve then?” _you hate the way he says Dave’s name even more._

“wHAT, aBOUT HIM, hE HAS NOTHING TO DO, wITH THIS,”

“Cod Tavv dont think I havvent noticed the wway he looks at you and the wway you look at him. I’m not stupid. I wwas wwondering wwhy you wwould evver think about puttin a human in a quadrant, wwhen obvviously I am avvailable.” He leers, leaning over you, scarf brushing against your arm ( _that’s where Dave holds you when he time travels_ )-

And suddenly he’s back against the other wall, breathless, holding his stomach, and you are yelling, “yOU ARE UTTERLY DISGUSTING, gET AWAY FROM ME YOU RAVING DOUCHEBAG, oR I WILL END YOU,”

You pull your halberd out of the strife specibus for good measure. He looks surprised, and then grins.

“Wwell wwell didnt expect that from you of all people. You should be grateful that someone like me evven wwants to pail you.”

“iS YOUR BULGE ALL YOU EVER THINK ABOUT?”

And then he moves blindingly fast, and you really weren’t expecting it and your halberd falls embarrassingly right out of your hands as he knocks it aside and pins your hands above you. You are suddenly terrified.

“Didn’t expect to find blackrom today; just goes to showw dont it Tavv?”

 _No._

Before your robotic knee lands in his crotch he is pulled off and slammed against the wall; once, and again, and then he’s on the floor with a visibly angry Dave Strider with both knees on his chest and a sharpened sword an inch from his throat. You see his shoulders tense and bulge –

And you’re grabbing his arms, wrestling the sword away, shouting “nO, yOU CAN'T,” and when you can’t release the sword from his grip you grasp his face in your hands and say, “dAVE, yOU'RE NOT LIKE THIS,”

It’s only then you realize that his sunglasses had fallen off and you’re looking straight into his _beautiful_ red eyes and it’s like looking at his soul – angry and hurt.

He wrenches himself away, returns the sword to his strife specibus (thank troll jegus), puts his sunglasses back on, and hisses, “You come near Tavros or me again, you’re going to wish he was here to remind me of my better nature.”

And he’s up and gone, but you know how to follow him, know the traces of his flashsteps, and you find him on the rooftops.

He’s got his legs hanging over the side and he doesn’t turn around when you walk up to him.

“Why’d you let yourself get cornered by that,” and he waves a hand in the air. You rendered Dave Strider speechless. You wish it hadn’t happened like this.

“dAVE, i DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS GOING TO DO THAT,”

And he’s up and yelling, “Tavros, don’t _ever_ let people treat you like that, like you’re nothing, like you’re just something to be used, you’re not a fuckup, it’s that other people push their standards too high and if you can’t make it, no matter how close you get, you’re just considered worthless,” and his breathing is hitching and shoulders are shaking –

And you lean in and kiss that boy.

-his lips _are_ soft, slightly parted, and you can feel the light breath on your own lips; he tastes so strange, definitely, utterly alien, but there’s salt too, and you know what that is; how strange that tears taste the same between universes-

“i, dON'T THINK YOU'RE WORTHLESS, dAVE,”

He was still before; now his mouth twists down; the lenses look off your left shoulder, and his Adam’s apple bobs; and when he looks back there are definitely tears (how strange, that they’re clear) and he looks so distressed and pleading-

So you hold each other on the rooftop as the universe spins past you, and you both cry for Dave Strider and Tavros Nitram.


	4. Chapter 4

It's so very quiet, the only sound Dave's and your harsh breathing. Dave is slim and slender in your arms, head resting on your shoulder, and you feel what can only be described as ( _coming home_ ) peace; but it's only after a long look at the stars that you realize Dave is whispering into your ear.

"...could never win, never, wasn't ever good enough, even when I tried, even when I got inspired and did something absolutely genius, I still could never win, but I couldn't hate him after all he'd done for me, and it's because I wasn't good enough that he's dead, even sprite-me who's fucking part of Sburb wasn't good enough, and he's probably dead too, and it's my fault all the alternate Daves die, if I didn't keep screwing up there wouldn't be so many dead mes, it’s like I kill everything I touch, and it scares me, so badly, but I could never tell him, because weakness is bad and I am weak, and if I was only stronger they wouldn’t’ve had to die… "

His voice trails off suddenly and you feel terror suddenly bloom in the pit of your stomach, sending white-hot heat through your veins. You clutch him closer ( _please please let the nameless terror be wrong, oh god please_ )-

But he's already stiffened up, and he's no longer holding you but letting his arms rest around your shoulders and his head is lifted, looking down on you ( _what must you look like_ ), the only indication of distress momentary hitches in breath and a red nose.

You don't know what he's thinking anymore; he's suddenly inscrutable again, like he hadn't been for weeks, like before you ever met him and only knew him as a figure on a computer screen, and the loss feels like dying.

He steps back, your suddenly weak arms ( _he had once made a comment about your arms, strong from pushing your four-wheeled device, comparing them to an Earth deity called Hulk Hogan_ ) falling away.

You desperately hope that the smile he calls to his face costs him, that it's only with effort that he puts back the poker face and the coolkid demeanor, but you no longer feel like you deserve hope.

"That concludes this feelings jam, Nitram. Pleasure to pile with you."

"dAVE, nO,"

The flinch he conceals only stabs you through the chest ( _like a lance through a bull’s-eye_ ).

"Tavros, I'm fine," and it doesn't feel good anymore when he mimics your tone, "we'll count this jam as a success. But really, I don't need them. I am," and he spreads his arms, shrugs, "perfectly okay."

No, this is what dying must feel like.

You can't say anything. What is there to say? How can you tell him what he gave to you, generously and unknowingly, when he insists on taking it back?

He's still talking, but you can barely see his face through the film of orange that covers your vision.

"It's better that I reach out to others, too, to really unify this team," and you can't help it, you twist your head away and willfully believe that it's just your imagination when he stumbles over his next words, voice suddenly twisted.

When he says he has to go, you don't answer; but you listen to his footsteps and how they speed up as soon as he's out of sight, like he's running away.

Your shirt is still damp from his tears, and you press your hand to it, hard ( _Dave gave you hope and- and pity, even if he didn't mean it and never really did_ ) and you don't know what to do anymore.

\-----  
You stumble into the dining hall two hours later, right when everything exciting ends. John looks like he was crying, although now he just looks scared. Jade and Rose are restraining Dave while Terezi and Kanaya hold back Karkat. Both are flushed; Dave’s sunglasses are askew, riding over a rapidly swelling bump on his cheek, while Karkat gingerly touches a split lip. Dave shrugs the girls off.

“I had something I wanted to tell you anyways, Karkles-“ Terezi barely manages to hold back Karkat as he lunges – “I want Nitram off my team. Work it out however you want.”

It’s only after he turns that he sees you standing in the doorway, too shocked to cry. And then he only pauses a moment before he’s walking past you and down the hallway.

When you turn back, Karkat is holding John. “THE FUCKASS DIDN’T MEAN IT, EGBERT. NOW PLEASE STOP CRYING BEFORE WE BOTH MAKE FOOLS OF OURSELVES.”

John cracks a small smile. “You already made a fool of yourself, Karkat.”

“MORE OF A FOOL THEN.”

Karkat starts to walk John out, but John has noticed you and whispers urgently into his ear. You wonder what you could possibly look like to cause that much worry, because Karkat is charging over to you, brows furrowed, but not in the typically angry way; less angry, more caring.

You dreamily wonder why anybody cares about you at all, but that thought stirs up turbulent emotions again so you stifle it; imagine a thick soft blanket dropping over the screaming mess that is you inside your head, and it works well enough.

Karkat speaks low and insistent. “TALK TO ROSE, I’VE GOT TO GO.” He takes a long look at you, and you observe that he has really very long eyelashes for a troll, which isn’t really much compared to – humans –

Then he shakes you. “STOP IT. I’M TEMPORARILY REASSIGNING YOU TO NEPETA AND FEFERI’S GROUP. WE’LL WORK THIS OUT.” And then a hug, and this is almost enough to shock you out of your stupor. “GOOD LUCK.”

 _That’s up to Vriska,_ you think nonsensically. But you listen to him, and before you know it you are seated in Kanaya’s respiteblock while Rose knits and Kanaya attempts to.

“This is what happened: before you entered, Dave had come in and teased John for ‘being an unashamed interspecies homosexual,’ among other things. Karkat, among others, was upset, and the two engaged in fisticuffs until they were separated. Would you be comfortable telling me what happened in the two hours since your practice session ended?”

You shake your head, accidentally entangling yourself in a wall hanging. Kanaya immediately reaches over and removes the fabric from around your horn.

Rose watches you, serene. She and Kanaya fit each other, you think. They’re restrained, but you can tell they pity each other because of how they – look at each other –

“i, jUST DON'T GET IT,” or maybe you understand too well, and everything that Dave ever made you think about yourself was wrong, and now that you start thinking about Dave you can’t stop. And then you really start crying.

Kanaya, seemingly looking for any excuse to stop knitting, comes to sit by you and strokes your back with her long, glowing fingers.

“Let me say some things about Dave that I’ve gleaned over the years. Make of them what you will.”

Kanaya mutters under her breath, “I Appear To Have Lost A Full Quarter Of My Stitches.”

“I imagine a Houstonian public middle school is much like troll society in some respects.”

You look at her, shocked. “dAVE, wAS AT RISK FOR CULLING?”

“Human society frowns upon murder as a means of enforcing social order; however, thirteen-year-old kids have other means of establishing a pecking order. You see, Dave is extremely unusual by human standards. Proficient in martial techniques at a young age; schooled in unusual pursuits at home; plus, of course, his odd looks.”

You don’t understand what’s wrong with Dave’s looks, but you stay quiet.

“His attitude, combined with his formidable intelligence – though he may choose not to exhibit it, we are related and as such share unusually high IQs – may have led some of the more influential – and insecure, I speculate – students to consider him stuck-up, unworthy of affiliation. No matter his words on the subject, Dave is not, nor has ever been, completely immune from judgment of that kind.”

You’re shaken from your enthrallment by Kanaya’s muffled – and almost completely out of character – “Fuck.” But Rose keeps going and you start paying attention again.

“In addition, his guardian emphasized success over happiness but seldom let him succeed. If his goal was to mold Dave into the perfect SBURB player, he succeeded – but at the expense of Dave’s psyche.”

To be honest, you were hoping for reasons to stop pitying Dave Strider, not the opposite. Your heart is breaking all over again. Dave _deserves_ to be pitied, but he won’t let you, and when you’ve somehow broken him too, like his human school and his lusus – you don’t want to break him worse.

Rose pauses in her knitting, laying a hand on your shoulder. “Sometimes Dave does things for stupid reasons because he’s scared.” She sits back. “You can figure out the rest, surely.”

You can’t help the spill of words. “rOSE, i DON'T WANT TO MAKE HIM WORSE, hE WAS ALRIGHT UNTIL, i SORT OF, uHHH, mADE A FLUSHED ADVANCE, aND THEN HE RAN AWAY AND GOT IN A FIGHT WITH KARKAT AND MADE JOHN CRY, aND IF I MAKE HIM CRUEL, tHEN I DON'T MIND - NOT BEING NEAR HIM,”

A frustrated Kanaya (at you or at her knitting, which resembles a snarled tangle of brambles?) tosses her knitting down. “Tavros, Fate Is Not Always Cruel. Sometimes Fate Means For Us To Be Happy, But We Are The Ones Who Must Reach Out And Take The Chance.”

\-----

You've been staring at the bare ceiling. You tried to talk to Rufio, but it felt _wrong_ ; you're alone.

But you try again, anyways, because what else will you do? Practice the flash step that Dave was teaching you -

The flare of pain in your chest and the hot lump in your throat convince you that Rufio is a better option.

"rUFIO, i DON'T UNDERSTAND; wHAT DID I DO? wHAT DID ROSE MEAN?"

You have to look at his poster or you'll start imagining Dave's voice in your head. As you gaze at him (his eyes are pointed somewhere off your right shoulder) your mind wanders down a seeming tangent.

"tAVROS, wHAT DID DAVE GIVE YOU, tHAT MADE HIM MEAN SO MUCH TO YOU?"

"hE, mADE ME, mORE ASSERTIVE, aND -"

"bOY, hE DIDN'T MAKE YOU DO NOTHING. hE HELPED YOU REALIZE SOMETHING, wHICH IF YOU'D BEEN LISTENING, tO ME PROPERLY, yOU MIGHT HAVE REALIZED LONG AGO."

"rUFIO, JUST TELL ME NOW,"

"yOU'RE NOT PERFECT,"

Well, that didn't help at all.

"bUT NO ONE ELSE IS EITHER. iF YOU MAKE MISTAKES, yOU ARE NOT AUTOMATICALLY WORTHLESS. mISTAKES, dO NOT MAKE THE MAN,"

You're not sure you get it.

"fOR THE LOVE OF TROLL JEGUS, tAVROS, yOU'RE A GOOD PERSON AND DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE ONE, and there are people who care about you, and who think you should know that you should treat yourself like a good person too."

Suddenly Rufio sounds like Dave.

"And you shouldn't think that because everyone treats you like shit, you are shit. Cause then you start treating yourself like you're shit too."

That makes sense.

"Realize that you're worth something, that you're not a complete fuckwit; that sometimes, you’re just out of your depth and it’s not your fault; that the majority opinion of you doesn't matter so much as your opinion of yourself."

Dave maybe needs to take his own advice, you think.

"dAVE LET YOU KNOW THAT SOMEONE CARED, aND YOU REALIZED THAT YOU DESERVED IT."

Now the voice sounds like yourself.

And you think you know how to fix Dave Strider.


	5. Chapter 5

You duck back around the corner as Jade storms out of Dave’s room, shouting, “You enormous, insufferable fuckass! Deal with your own shit and stop taking it out on others!” Then she slams Dave’s own door on him and stomps away in the other direction. You breathe a sigh of relief.

After waiting to make sure she doesn’t come back, you tiptoe up and knock gently on his door.

“You slammed the fucking door to my fucking room; ain’t no way I’m letting you back in here, Harley.”

“dAVE, iT'S, uHH, tAVROS,”

Your heart thuds painfully against your ribs, once, twice, three times before the door opens. When you carefully maneuver your head into the opening, Dave is already walking back to his odd stuffed flat recuperacoon.

You’ve never been inside Dave’s room. It’s shockingly bare, except for the shitty swords lining a wall and the turntables under them. You remember seeing his room back on Earth, cables littering the floor, photographs hanging from lines, dead things on shelves. This room looks exposed, like he hadn’t wanted to put himself into it. It looks lonely.

As you ease into the room and shut the door, Dave asks, “Are you going to flip the fuck out too?” His voice is brittle, the coolness that usually coats it a thin veneer over jagged edges.

“nO, dAVE, i DON'T WANT TO FIGHT,” You trail off. You don’t know how to start.

“dAVE, wHAT'S A HOMOSEXUAL?”

He’s lounging on the bed, the attempted laziness of the posture contradicted by the tight shoulders and fidgeting leg. At that he gives a bitter laugh.

“Want a dictionary definition? Here you go: noun, meaning sexual interest in people of your own sex. Synonyms: fag, homo, butt pirate, pansy, queen, fairy, and my personal favorite, ass bandit. Has negative connotations and is often used in derogatory comments. Any more questions, Tavbro?”

“oWN, sEX?”

“Sweet Jegus, fags like burritos more than tacos and no one likes them for it, get it yet?”

You don’t get it. “tHAT'S A SILLY THING TO, mAKE DEROGATORY COMMENTS ABOUT, eSPECIALLY TO YOUR FRIENDS, sHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE, uHH, aLLOWED T-TO PITY WHOMEVER THEY LIKE-“

“I fucking knew it, you’re turning on me too,” and his voice is full of self-awareness, of the hypocrisy of his words and the cruelty he’s shown, and the self-loathing – always the self-loathing when he’s like this, how come you hadn’t heard it before?

“nO, dAVE, i'M NOT TURNING ON YOU, i CARE AND, i HATE TO SEE YOU ACT THIS WAY, pLEASE-”

“What is it, Tavros? You jealous cause I only go for chicks? I know you’ve wanted to pail me since the first time you saw me-“  
That – really hurt. “yOU'RE HURTING, aND THAT'S WHY YOU'RE SAYING CRUEL THINGS, bECAUSE YOU ARE NOT IN FULL CONTROL OF YOURSELF –“

“-no dude, Striders are _always_ in control, is that what you want, Tavros, you want me to be in control, you’re a freak like that aren’t you-“

“-yOU'RE STRIKING OUT BECAUSE YOU'RE SCARED, bUT IT'S OKAY-“

“-hell I can understand it, everybody wants to tap some Strider ass and Striders never bottom-“

“-yOU HAVE UNREASONABLE, eXPECTATIONS FOR YOURSELF, aND WHEN YOU CAN'T MEET THEM, yOU SPIRAL DOWN-“

“-want me to grab you by those big horns and ride you like a mechanical bull-”

“-yOU'RE, iRRATIONALLY ANGRY AT YOURSELF-“

“-at myself, it’s idiots like you that really drive me up the wall-“

“-iT'S, nOT YOUR FAULT, tHAT PEOPLE DIED-“

“-yeah I just knew you were going to use that against me, probably can’t piss without you talking about it-“

“-pEOPLE SOMETIMES, mAKE MISTAKES BUT IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU ARE A FAILURE-“

“-you’d know all about that, obviously your only goal is a little threesome between you, me and a bucket-“

“i ACTUALLY VALUE YOU, fOR REASONS THAT I AM FINDING, iNCREASINGLY HARDER TO RECALL, bUT-“

“-we’d have to get a helluva big bucket cause I don’t think I can look at your face right now-“

“-i THINK, tHAT YOU ARE DOING THIS, bECAUSE MAYBE YOU ARE SCARED THAT YOU DON'T DESERVE-“

“-damn fucking straight I don’t deserve this-“ He’s suddenly close, too close, and you’re uncomfortably reminded of Eridan.

“What do I have to do to get you off my back? I am done here. I want you to be done here. Wanna get your mack on with Dave Strider? Here’s your chance. I will do literally anything for you to be gone right now, and if it means sacrificing my sweet virginal purity to your enormous alien ‘bone bulge,’ then what the fuck are you waiting for?”

And that does it, it’s unbearable the way he treats himself and the way he’s treating you right now, and you know that this isn’t how he wants to be, and you only realize you’ve slapped him when he raises a wondering hand to his cheek (not the bruised one, thank goodness) where a red imprint is already showing.

“yOU, aND I, aRE NOT PIECES OF MEAT, aND SHOULD NOT BE TALKED ABOUT, iN THAT FASHION,”

His face does that twist again, the twist you remember from – was it really only five hours ago? It hurts just as much to see it as it did then .

“I deserved that.”

“uHH, wELL, yES, bUT NOT IN THE WAY THAT YOU MEAN-“

“Fuck, I made John cry. I made John cry. He’s just – the nicest fucking derp and I m-made him cry.”

“dAVE LISTEN TO ME-“

“And then I provoked Harley, on purpose, I wanted to hurt her, to make her hurt-“

“dAVE STOP-“

“And you.” He looks up suddenly, startling you, and you realize you’ve been creeping closer and closer and your hands are dangerously close to settling on his shoulders. “Why are you even still here?”


	6. Chapter 6

“I practically fucking destroyed you.”

You don’t know what to say, but you back off, looking at him.

“I know how you feel about me. You never learned how to hide your emotions, did you.”

The heat is rising to your face, but you can’t say anything; can’t think of anything to say.

His voice is so raw.

“I shouldn’t’ve said all that. On the roof. You didn’t need to hear it.”

“dAVE I WANTED TO HEAR IT,”

“Doesn’t matter. I should have had more control.” The poker face is on, but he doesn’t even try to cover it up with a fake smile. His face looks somehow both drained and rigid.

“And I, really, sincerely, apologize.” You’re scared now, because you can tell he really, sincerely, means it, and your window of opportunity is closing.

“dAVE DON'T APOLOGIZE, i KIND OF WANTED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT-“

“Tavros, today has been a long day, fraught with so much drama a less cool kid would’ve flipped his shit by now. I need my beauty sleep.”

And despite your protests you find yourself on the other side of his door, the cold metal shut in your face. And after standing there, mentally berating yourself for not handling it better (you’re not sure what you could have done, anyways) you leave.

Dave Strider does not ask for you to be transferred back to his group.

Your heart breaks when you see him in the VR room the next day, and you have to head over to Nepeta and Feferi – who are both nice people, but they’re not Dave. It breaks again when he treats you the same way he treats them, cold courtesy.

It bothers you that you could have fixed him, you could have helped, but he wouldn’t let you in and you couldn’t convince him to. It bothers you that he wouldn’t let you see his wounds so you could bandage them, and that you couldn’t make him budge.

A week later Lord English comes. There is no warning. You feel a certain relief that you’re in the doomed timeline.

During the massacre, you slip away from Nepeta and Feferi, who give you nods of understanding. Your heart swells with fondness for them, and with regret that they’ll soon be gone. You ride Jolly Roger through the hordes, charging them, feeling him crush them under his hooves as you slash at them with your halberd, making your way ever upwards.

Dave is, of course, on the rooftops. He doesn’t see you. He also doesn’t see the wild-haired troll with arching horns and bangles about to pierce him through with a 2x3dent. He doesn’t notice – Jade is fighting someone else off – ( _he’s not your responsibility anymore_ ) ( _shut the fuck up, if not mine then whose?_ )-

You level your lance at her and kick Jolly Roger forward; it’s impossible not to hear him thundering, and when she turns she looks shocked, and you realize the sound is you screaming –

She barely avoids the sharp, killing tip of your lance, but she’s knocked aside, and so are you. Jolly Roger attacks her furiously, but you think it’s odd because you’re not riding him – and when you try to breathe in to whistle to him, your muscles seize around the three gold points piercing your chest. You touch them, trying to make sense of it, fingers smearing the brown blood over the shaft of the trident as you fall onto your side.

 _It hurts_ , you think, surprised. Brown blood mists the trident and Dave’s ( _shaking_ ) hands as you breathe out.  
He’s shouting at you, something about “why” and “why did you do that” but you’re not really paying attention because your head is in his lap and his hands are so gentle on your face, and you have to tell him – it’s hard though, you can’t get enough breath –

“yOU'RE A GOOD PERSON,,, dAVE ,,, aND I PITY YOU,”

You touch his face, staining his flesh and tears with your blood. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see multiple Daves – crying, bloody – appear, attacking the Empress (of course you knew who she was, but it hardly matters anymore). You reach for his glasses, and he lets you slip them off.

His eyes are beautiful. You’re glad you saw them before the blackness sweeps across you and you don’t feel anything anymore.

**REWIND: Y/N?**


	7. Chapter 7

**REWIND: Y**

“I practically –“

He doesn’t finish his sentence, because suddenly Aradia is in the room, holding up a cut and bleeding Dave, and you barely hold back a cry.

“Day thirty-nine, 2239.” You look over at Dave – your Dave, and you wonder what he means –

“Day forty-seven, 1524. You have seven days and thirteen hours before Lord English comes.” Aradia looks up at alpha Dave as she lowers doomed Dave – who appears to be unconscious – to the ground.

“I know we agreed forty-eight hours before he comes, but our Dave insisted we come back to here. I have to go; Sollux and I discovered something – thanks to Dave, mostly – about the structure of the universes that may help you, and I have to tell Karkat.”

Dave nods to her as she walks out. Aradia, her eyes lingering on yours, whispers something in Dave’s ear as she leaves. He shows no reaction.

Your eyes are drawn back to doomed Dave. Doomed Dave is wearing a shredded tee; it looks like he had been whipped. Badly. He's covered in weals, cuts, and abrasions, and there's a cut on his scalp that has wept red blood down to cover his face and turn his pale hair into a dark sticky mat.

But it’s the sword wound right through his stomach that your eyes keep returning to. It was hastily bandaged with what looks like scraps from Aradia’s clothes, and the bloodstains show up as splotches of darker red against the fabric. You can _see_ the blood leave his body, see the bloodstains grow larger, pulse by pulse by pulse –

And you run over there – what did Feferi teach you? Direct pressure – or at least you try, because Dave grabs your arm and stops you. “Doomed Daves are gonna die, no matter what you do,” and his voice is harsh, unforgiving, and you wonder for the thousandth time how many Daves he has seen dead.

He motions you to stay put, and you watch as he kneels next to doomed Dave. He reaches for his shoulder, but hesitates – perhaps because it looks as if it’s been chewed on – and instead settles for a little slap across the face. Doomed Dave mumbles something. His breathing is harsh, each breath rasping in and out. You want to go to him – but you don’t. _Not yet_ , you assure yourself.

With the second slap, doomed Dave lurches back into consciousness, drawing in a ragged breath, then grabbing your Dave by the shirt with a hand that only slightly shakes. “When am I?” he asks in a voice like a croak.

“When you apparently wanted to be. Day 39, 2242.”

He relaxes and lets his hand fall. You can see his muscles alternately tensing and relaxing as he tries to find the least painful way to lie there; sometimes a shudder runs through him and blood pulses out of the wound in his stomach.

“It doesn’t work. He dies anyway. Even though I tried, again and again.”

Your Dave tenses, hunches over a little more. “Who?”

“Tav-“ Doomed Dave shudders again. “Tavros.” His voice breaks, and you can see the tears washing clean trails down his temples.

Your Dave doesn’t move. “Who else.”

Doomed Dave shakes his head slowly and speaks in a gasping tone. “Everyone, I guess. I was the last one still fighting…Lord English didn’t fight us personally…he had minions. They looked like Aradia and Feferi…I found the bastard, but Aradia dragged me away too soon, before I could make him pay…”

He pauses for a shaky breath. You can see him struggle to control his pain, and you can’t take it anymore.

“dAVE WE NEED TO TAKE HIM TO FEFERI, nOW,”

Doomed Dave – almost dead Dave – looks over in your direction as soon as you begin to speak, and struggles to sit up. Your Dave doesn’t move.

“Tavros…Tavros, you died…” When he sits up the compression of the stomach wound sends a fresh pulse of blood soaking through the cloth, and you don’t care what alpha Dave says anymore, you run over, saying, “dON'T MOVE, dAVE, dON'T MOVE,”

You take his head into your lap and touch his face gently, wiping away the tears and the blood with the pads of your gray fingers. Alpha Dave stumbles upright and moves away, his back to you. Dying Dave looks at you from behind his sunglasses. “Tavros, past me is an idiot. Don’t listen to him…”

You want to cry, but you smile instead, stroke his cheek ( _so soft, so soft_ ). You brush his glasses and hesitate, your fingers hovering.

Doomed Dave says, “Go ahead.” Alpha Dave turns and watches, face impassive.

You slide them off. His eyes are beautiful. He’s beautiful.

“I never told you I loved you, but you told me.”

You can’t help it, you start to cry.

And he’s reaching up to touch your face too, staining your flesh and tears with his blood.

“Tavros…don’t let me die like this,” and his voice is pure pleading, like you’ve never heard from Dave before, and you understand.

You kiss him – the taste of blood and tears sweeping through your consciousness – take a blade from your strife specibus, and slide it into his heart.

He stiffens, and relaxes with a sigh.

Then you grieve for Dave Strider, his limp form in your arms.


	8. Chapter 8

You’re still shaking with silent sobs when you feel a hand on your shoulder. When you look up, Dave looks at you for a moment then kneels down next to you.

“Tavros, I’m sorry.” He really, sincerely, is, and it touches your heart and goes a long way to mending what he had broken.

“i, aM USING THE HUMAN CONCEPT OF FORGIVENESS - WHICH I LEARNED FROM JADE - TO EXPLAIN, hOW I FEEL, aBOUT YOUR APOLOGY,” He smiles, and so do you, and it feels like coming home.

You sit together, looking at dead Dave’s body. He looks calm in death, the tension and tautness you always associated with Dave gone, and he suddenly looks so much younger.

You hesitate before you ask. “hOW MANY, hAVE THERE BEEN?”

He rests his head on his knees. “I know there’s at least sixty-three. Other mes may have made more mistakes and killed more Daves. But I know about sixty-three.”

He looks so tired. “I…I don’t like seeing them.”

“aRE THERE, uHH, hUMAN DEATH RITES, wE CAN DO?”

Dave settles down, cross-legged. “I usually just chucked them into the lava on LOHAC.”

“mAYBE, wE CAN FIND, sOME LAVA, oR ALCHEMIZE SOME,”

“We’re on an asteroid. We can finally fulfill my childhood dreams of being an astronaut by launching him into space.”

You look at him. His face is inscrutable, but then it breaks into a fragile smile. “That was a bad joke. But a good idea.”

Dave captchalogues dead Dave. You don’t pass anybody on your way to the alchemiter. A long time later, when you and Dave are watching dead Dave’s corpse sail out into horrorterror country (“John would be pissing his pants with glee right now”), he speaks.

“I’m sorry you had to do that.”

You nod. He keeps going. “I’m sorry you had to deal with me being an insufferable prick too.”

You nod again. He keeps going too. “And about the stuff I said, on the roof, and back there –“

“dAVE, i KNOW YOU DIDN'T MEAN, wHAT YOU SAID,”

He sighs. “No, I didn’t.”

“yOU DIDN'T MEAN, wHAT YOU SAID TO JOHN, eITHER, i THINK,”

He looks at you sharply, and then lets a small laugh escape. “Rose told you, didn’t she. Jade wouldn’t want to ruin your innocence, and John wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation.”

“tHEN WHY DID YOU SAY IT? aND THOSE THINGS, tO ME, tOO,,,”

“I…” he pauses, grasping for words. “don’t really have any excuses. I could go Rose on myself, and say that” – he makes air quotes with his fingers – “my fear of dependency and of hurting those closest to me makes me drive them away, but we all know that that’s just snarky psychoanalytical horseshit.”

You think that somehow he managed to coat that sentence in so much irony it ended up being true.

He scuffs his red shoes across the ground. “And I guess…people always said those things to me. Including Bro. And I know, intellectually, that it’s fucking stupid to hate on people for who they wanna get their mack on with, but… It’s hard too because,”

You look at him curiously. Dave Strider is paler than usual under the wan starlight.

“I’ve been homosexual as long as I can remember.”

“oH,”

“I’ve never told anybody before.” He exhales, hard, and throws his head back. “I’m gay.”

He looks over at you. The relief on his face is palpable. When you realize you can read his emotions again, you’re just as relieved. You still don’t think you understand why homosexuality is an issue, but if it kept Dave from being this happy then you hate it. You really, really _hate it_.

“wHY DIDN'T YOU, eVER TELL ANYONE?”

“I don’t know. Well, at school, you could never tell anyone you were gay, and at home…Bro always brought home women, and… it wasn’t ever a thing I could be. It wasn’t a thing anyone could be, unless they liked getting beat up. I had a reputation to maintain, anyways.” He shrugs. You don’t think he knows the extent of what Rose told you. She never mentioned this, though –

“wHAT ABOUT, jOHN AND JADE, aND ROSE?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “I figured they didn’t really need to know; they never asked and I never told, and see, it all worked out alright.”

“i DON'T THINK THEY ARE, uM, tHE TYPE OF PEOPLE TO, sUDDENLY DISLIKE YOU, fOR THIS?”

He stays still for a long time, looking at the stars. Eventually, he says, “I guess not. But they might dislike me for what I said.”

“i THINK THAT THEY KNOW THAT, sOMETIMES, yOU ARE NOT ALWAYS THE BEST OF FRIENDS, bUT I AM PRETTY SURE THAT, uH, tHEY WON'T STOP CARING ABOUT YOU, aNYWAYS, aND, tHAT APPLIES, tO ALL PEOPLE, tHAT YOU MIGHT CONSIDER, uHHH, fRIENDS,” and you decide to look away from the curves of his face and the lines of his body and to concentrate, very firmly, on the stars, so that maybe the hot flush will go away.

Unfortunately, the sudden awareness that he’s looking at you prods you into talking more.

“aND, i THINK, tHAT YOU ARE, oNE OF THE BEST PEOPLE, i KNOW, wHICH I GUESS, iS NOT SAYING MUCH SINCE THERE ARE ONLY SIXTEEN OF US LEFT, bUT IF THERE WERE MORE, yOU WOULD PROBABLY BE ONE OF THE BEST, aND THIS, iS SOMETHING, wHICH I BELIEVE TO BE TRUE, eVEN, iF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME,”

Dave takes your hand in his. His hands are pale but callused, cool against your fingers.

“Tavros.” He pauses for a second – you never thought you would see the day when Dave Strider had to work up the nerve to do something. “Tavros, I have never felt this way about anybody before. You have made me into a better man, and my life would be as miserable as a Nicholas Cage marathon without you. You are my sun and my moon-“ you can’t help but start giggling, and he smiles back as he continues. “-the chocolate to my marshmallow, and I want to make sweet s’mores with you.”

In a flash, he has his other arm around your waist and is dipping you down and you both outright laugh, the sound ringing through the air. “Tavros – will you be my boy? Do you want to go steady with me? Will you wear my jacket –“

You’re laughing as you tell him, “sHUT UP AND KISS ME, yOU FOOL.”

\-----

After some more discussion, and maybe some other things too, the two of you head to the mess hall where there is an uncommon racket going on.

Dave slows. You give him a look, the kind of look you used to imagine Rufio giving you when you were nervous about things like ~~kissing girls~~ ~~kissing~~ \- things, okay?

He barely controls a smile as he looks as you, then prods a darkening bruise on your neck, and you glare at him as you slap his hand away. Then you both walk into the room.

It is uncommonly noisy because one of the humans had apparently alchemized an odd, non-grub-based game console and a game that looks like it’s a giant ball rolling around the human landscape picking up human things? And growing bigger you guess? Humans sure are weird.

But it looks incredibly fun and you understand why Vriska and Nepeta are fighting each other for the next turn while the others stand around laughing and watching Sollux roll up mountains. Even though he’s blind. So. Cool.

While you’re staring entranced at the screen, Dave has wasted no time and gone over to talk to the other humans. Jade is angrily pouting, but she stops after John laughs and gives Dave a bunp, or rather a bunp filled with mangrit that would have sent Dave tumbling if he wasn’t so quick to catch himself and snark back. Rose, you realize, is looking at you.

You guess you should go over?

You slink over as unobtrusively as you can; it’s a little hard when your metal feet clank against the floor with every step and your horns extend an entire human foot from your body on both sides.

Rose smiles at you. “I see you did figure out the rest.”

“yEAH, i GUESS SO,” You smile back. You’re proud of yourself.

Her eyes travel down and back up, and her smile grows wider. “I see Dave managed to figure something out as well.” She pitches her voice so that the tangled, wrestling mess that is Dave and John stops moving for a second and they look at her.  
“Oh hell no, Rose, there is absolutely nothing for you to psychoanalyze –“

“What? What is it, Rose? Hey Tavros, do you know - _oh._ ”

Oh god oh man is it that obvious. Maybe the flush that’s spreading will hide the bruise! Yes. This is what you are going to believe. If it kills you.

Jade is looking at you critically. When you tentatively shrug and smile, she gets it. “Dave, you mean you were being mean to John about being gay and _then you go and ‘get your mack on with an alien boy’_ -” Jade is glaring again. Dave, having removed himself from the bro pile, holds up his hands to forestall getting whacked with a rolled up newspaper.

“Fuck, firstly I thought I apologized for that already, and secondly, will you stop whacking me with a newspaper, I’m not fucking Bec Noir –“

John chirps up, an unholy grin on his face. “Maybe not Bec Noir, but any shenanigans of that sort will obviously come after you and Tavros have a sweet alien wedding! I volunteer myself as best man!”

Dave kinda stares. And then he snorts, his shoulders relaxing and his jaw not so tense anymore, and you can tell he’s relieved. He catches your eye and you both smile. Well, you smile and Dave twitches both corners of his mouth.

“Dave, you have hidden this exceptionally well, I must say.”

“What? Rose, this is _totally not unexpected_.” John slouches a little and does a grumpy face. “’I’m Dave Strider, and heterosexuality is too mainstream’ – oh wait wait – ‘I’m Dave Strider and I’m too cool for old-school sexuality-‘” Dave punches him and you laugh. You’re happy, you realize. With people you like ~~and someone you pity~~ , joking and laughing as Dave finally gives up and lets Jade whack him.

“Fine. You all win. I’m Dave Strider, and I am sassily. Flamboyantly.” He pauses until you’re all looking at him. “Cool.”

Even when Karkat barrels into the room, looking extra angry, you don’t care. Maybe a little bit when he looks over and sees the five of you chumming it up, and his eyes get buggier and angrier than ever.

“JOHN I THOUGHT I SAID SOMETHING ABOUT FRATERNIZATION WITH INSUFFERABLE PRICKS–“

John glomps onto Dave and you almost don’t feel jealous at all. “No way, Karkat, we made up and plus –“ He takes a huge breath, and lets it out in a conspiratorial whisper that manages to fail at being a whisper: “Dave. Just came out of. The closet!”

“WHY THE FUCK WAS HE IN A STORAGE BLOCK AND WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I CARE? IF HE WANTS TO SPEND SOME TIME IN THERE FOR SHITTY ‘IRONIC’ REASONS THEN I FOR ONE WILL BE GLAD TO BE RID OF HIS STUPID BLACK LENSES –“

You don’t think Karkat’s really all that mad at Dave anymore, though. As soon as he realized John wasn’t depressed anymore, his shoulders relaxed and his jaw stopped being so tense around the edges – just like Dave, you think.

Who is now standing next to you, no sign of disturbance from being thoroughly drubbed. “Looks like I’ll have to start taking your advice more often, Tavros.”

You both studiously look in other directions while you stealthily link hands. Nobody notices in the pandemonium.

It is the perfect crime.


	9. Chapter 9

Karkat yanks the Playstation out of the wall to universal criticism.

“SHUT UP NOOKSNIFFERS, THIS IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR STUPID ROLLY GAME-“

“:33

“-I SAID SHUT UP. DOOMED ARADIA, AND APPARENTLY ALSO DOOMED DAVE, CAME BACK.”

Everyone shuts up. You had forgotten what that meant. It feels like an ice-water dunking on your happy emotions.

You only have a week with Dave before whatever-it-is happens. And you two are going to be busy. And after that, also maybe dead, soon enough.

“DOOMED ARADIA FOUND A GLITCH IN THE UNIVERSE. YOU KNOW HOW SKAIA KNOWS WHEN AND WHERE TO SEND INCOMING METEORS? SHE AND DOOMED SOLLUX, AND YEAH I GUESS DOOMED DAVE SOMEHOW, FOUND OUT HOW SKAIA DID THAT. AND NOW WE KNOW HOW TOO. OR WE WILL, AS SOON AS SOLLUX STOPS PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS AND STARTS DOING SOMETHING USEFUL –“

“Hey asswipe this is the first time I’ve heard ab0ut it. H0w the hell am I supp0sed t0 have magically s0lved all 0ur pr0blems when I didn’t kn0w they existed-“

“SWEET TROLL JEGUS, WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY SHUT UP WHEN THEY’RE TOLD TO? SHUT UP, SOLLUX. IF WE KILL THIS FUCKER AND DO SHIT RIGHT WE MAY ACTUALLY HAVE A SHOT AT FIXING BOTH OUR UNIVERSES.”

You realize something. Oh no. That might be _worse_ because –

“But Karkat, if we fix our universes, what happens to us? What…happens?” John looks anguished. When you see Dave looking at you, you realize you must look the same. His grip on your hand is almost painfully tight. Yours probably is too.

“I DON’T KNOW.”

The words fall like stones in the silent room.

\-----

“Tavros, I have to go, but I’ll come by afterwards.”

You still refuse to let him go. You have to remember this, the smell of his shirt, his arms tight around you.

“You’ve got a grip like a horrorterror. Or like a crazy cat lady.” You wonder what Nepeta did to warrant a comparison like that.

“rIGHT AFTER?”

“Where else would I go?”

You mentally go _aww_. “fINE,”

“You have to let me go first.”

You let him go.

He looks at you oddly, and swoops in for a peck on the lips. Before you can return the favor, he’s gone.

The hours pass, and though you try to stay awake, you fall asleep on your couch.

\-----

The door has cracking varnish, the bare lightbulb making odd shadows on the sickly brown of the wood. You idly think that trolls don’t use wood in their architecture. As if in a dream, you knock.

A very tall human with a baseball cap and weird pointy sunglasses looms over you as soon as the sound of your knocking ceases to echo. You didn’t even notice the door open. You think he looks like Dave’s Bro. And your suspicions are confirmed when he speaks over his shoulder, drawling in an exaggerated Texan accent.

“Hey, Dave, one of your li’l alien pals is here.”

He stands aside, lets you pass. The door falls shut and the lock clicks, and you can feel Bro’s eyes on you all the way to the living room.

Dave walks in. When he sees you he stumbles and grabs a doorway for support.

“Tavros.”

The surroundings flicker. You’re all standing on the rooftops, and in the distance you can see – with a frisson of shock up your spine, you can see yourself, and Dave, shoulders hitching, and you kiss that boy, and then you hold each other –

And shifts again, the same rooftops, only blood, blood everywhere, and there’s a wildhaired troll with gold bangles - _it’s the Empress_ , you realize – and she’s about to stab Dave, but then you attack her – not you, memory you, because you understand now that it’s a dream bubble.

But you wince, gasp as memory you is speared with the tines of the 2x3dent – Dave’s holding you and crying – his shades are off, and even from a distance you thrill to the sight of his red eyes –

And then back to the shitty apartment, where you realize that all that only lasted a second.

“Tavros, are you dead?” His voice is tight with horror.

You’re still staring at where your body lay just a second ago, now replaced by a pile of smuppets. You look at Dave – doomed Dave – standing there paler than usual, and you shake your head.

“nO,,,NO I'M NOT DEAD,”

But he doesn’t relax. He’s not looking at you now. He’s looking behind you, and you realize that Bro is standing stock still behind you.

“Got an explanation for what I just saw?”

You’re edging away from him and his utterly flat, cold voice, but you don’t miss the tightening of Dave’s face.

“Wasn’t nothing to see, Bro.”

“Like hell.”

And there’s a clash of swords, Dave somehow managing to parry Bro’s attack before you even noticed what had happened.

"Couldn't even be a _normal_ faggot, could you?"

"Yeah, because your fucking _puppets_ are so normal!"

"So I guess you couldn't wait to get an anal probe, is that it?"

"It's not fucking _like_ that!"

"Did I forget to tell you to keep your ass away from alien probes, Dave?"

"Guess you must've been jerking it to your fucking _puppets_ -"

They’re dueling, but Dave is noticeably losing ground. You’re shocked; Dave’s fighting has an aura of desperation about it, jerky movements contrasting with his usual fluidity.

So you move to help him, but you can’t _find_ your strife specibus. Before you can leap on him, claws out, you’re caught and tripped to the floor, looking up to see terrifying blue eyes and a vicious grin, and it’s wrapping its orange arms around you-

“I tried to be a good role model for you, I fucking trained you so you’d be the best, _then I die for you_ , and you go around fucking alien faggots?”

The puppet refuses to stay disentangled from you, and you’re moaning a little in your throat as it winds around your throat.

The background wobbles again, and now you’re on the side of a highway. A truck blazes past, and you catch a glimpse of two pairs of pointed shades and pale hair before it’s gone, and you choke on the dust before it wobbles back–

And someone _grabs you by the horn_ and you feel _violated, wrong, no_ , and though you’re trying to tear the invasive hand off you feel sick-

And through the nausea you’re pulled up until you’re face to face with Bro Strider, dimly hearing Dave screaming in the background.

“What the ever-living fuck did you do to my baby brother.”

“Let him the fuck go, that is not something you do to trolls-“

“Shut up, I’m talking to it.”

You start to cry. His grip is tight, too tight, the leather rubbing in all the wrong ways –

“Look, Bro, I was just, you know, experimenting, okay?”

Bro doesn’t move. Your knees are weak. You think you hear someone calling your name, echoing as if down a dark corridor.

“I figured, it’s better to try shit out with trolls. They don’t even have emotions like us, did you know that?”

You suddenly feel less real, fading away, the echoing voice coming stronger, but then the grip on your horn flexes and you’re back in the bubble, crying, seeing Dave put on his poker face, and you can’t tell whether the roiling turmoil in your gut is from the death grip on your horn or from what Dave is saying.

“It’s not as if it’s human.”

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts –

“We’re going to discuss this.”

And the katana is run through your stomach, and before you disappear you can see Dave’s face crumple –

And you’re coming awake, screaming, crying, slashing at Dave with your claws. He’s trying to restrain you, but you’re not having any of that – you put a foot in his side. He hisses and falls away, and you crouch in the corner, teeth bared, fingers curved into claws, watching him.

“yOU, uTTER BASTARD,”

He’s watching you, sprawled on the floor, one hand on his side, the other propping him up. He moves into a kneel, reaches out a hand.

“What happened? Did I do something?”

And you growl at him, and he flinches, and you’re the most heartbroken and the angriest you’ve ever been in your life.


	10. Chapter 10

You shift, and you can see yourself dimly reflected in his sunglasses, a crouching feral thing with lantern-bright eyes. He moves to a kneeling position, but not as fast as usual, and you suppress the brief flare of guilt at hurting him.

“Tavros, bro, what happened?”

“dON'T USE YOUR, sTUPID HUMAN ENDEARMENTS, aNYMORE, bECAUSE I DON'T, wANT TO BE YOUR BRO,” and that makes you remember, and you wipe your hand across your eyes.

You cut him off before he can talk again. “i'M NOT, iNFERIOR TO YOU, bECAUSE I'M A TROLL, aND I HAVE FEELINGS, wHICH YOU HURT, yOU AND YOUR BRO,”

“Bro?”

You keep crying, and it makes you angry that you can’t stop. “kARKAT WAS RIGHT, aBOUT SLEEPING, aND ABOUT HUMANS, eVEN IF HE DID CHANGE HIS MIND,”

“Wait.”

You look at him, trying to hold back the hiccupping sobs. He raises a hand, points at you.

“You met Bro. In a dream bubble.”

“i WOULDN'T, cALL IT MEETING, iF I HAD TO DESCRIBE IT, wHICH I'D RATHER NOT, aCTUALLY, bECAUSE IT WAS, cOMPLETELY,” and you shut up because there are no words to describe it.

“Oh, fuck.” Dave’s staring at you and his voice is so flat. “ _Fuck_. I forgot.”

“fORGOT WHAT, yOU, fUCKING, aSSHOLE? tHAT YOU'RE ONLY, pLAYING GAMES, wITH ME, cAUSE I'M NOT HUMAN, aND THEREFORE, sUSCEPTIBLE TO YOUR, sTUPID HUMAN FAKE COURTSHIP AND FAKE FEELINGS, yOU LIAR,”

That serves to shock him out of his sudden daze. You don’t care.

“Wait, I didn’t lie to you. About that. I was kind of being serious –“

“sTOP, lYING,” and you slide down into the corner, putting your hands over your eyes. “i KNEW, i WAS BEING, gULLIBLE, sO, sERVES ME RIGHT, i GUESS,”

“Okay Tavros, I still don’t have any fucking idea what’s going on, other than meeting Bro in a dream bubble, and if you tell me what happened I can fix it.”

You glare at him, at the sheer presumptuousness of that statement. He seems utterly sincere, for once in Dave Strider’s life, and the anger melts a little bit. He really does want to fix it. Always the knight, rescuing others, fixing problems, even when he’s broken himself.

“i 'MET,' YOUR BRO, aND DOOMED DAVE, aGAIN, aND NOT ONLY DID YOU SAY, i DIDN’T MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU BUT, yOUR BRO,” and you get the words out in a rush, “mOLESTED AND KILLED ME, bECAUSE I KISSED YOU,”

Dave’s frozen. The silence stretches out, and you’re exhausted and you just don’t care anymore, so you watch him, absently wiping your cheeks.

“i THINK, i WOULD PREFER IT, iF YOU LEFT,”

“Tavros, wait, that wasn’t me-“

“tHAT'S, sTUPID TALK, tHEY'RE ALL YOU,”

“Well yeah but, Bro was there.”

“tHAT'S MORE STUPID TALK, jUST BECAUSE, sOMEONE ELSE IS THERE, dOESN'T MAKE YOU SOMEONE ELSE, tOO,”

“But it’s _Bro_.”

You’re irritated at his repetition. But you let him keep talking because you think you are understanding.

“Tavros, what did Bro do when he,” Dave is looking off to the side, a hand pressing the place where you kicked him. “found out?”

You shrug. “yOU FOUGHT, aND THEN HE, gRABBED MY HORN,”

Dave slowly shudders. When he looks at you again, a long time later, he looks terrible. “Tavros, I’m sorry. That you met Bro. And that doomed Dave said shit. I suppose,” he runs his hand through his hair, “I’m not going to sleep anytime soon.”

You keep watching him suspiciously. “I forgot about dream bubbles, Tavros. I never really wanted him to meet you.”

“cAUSE YOU'RE ASHAMED OF ME-“

“No! Because Bro would do what he did. And I didn’t want that to happen to either of us.” He’s clenching his hand in a fist and _pushing_ it into the floor; you can see his white knuckles and faint sprinklings of blood as it scrapes along the ground.   
“I couldn’t let Bro know.” He refuses to look up. “He’d never – he’d never forgive me. And I know if... he was hurting you, I'd probably say any shit I could think of to make him let you go. And I can think up some fucking messed up shit. So. I'm guessing that's what fucking dead Dave did, 'cause it's what I would do. I guess it's good to know it wouldn't work anyway."

You feel a wave of tenderness wiping away the last of the fury. You’re not angry, but you don’t want to forgive Dave. And you still pity him, too. That’s making it hard for you to not comfort him. It must have hurt him, like a wound that wouldn’t heal; in his eyes he couldn’t live up to what Bro expected of him. Or what he expected of himself.

“Do you still want me to go?”

“nO,”

You sit there, watching each other. Then you move, to sit by him, refusing to look at him. When you grab his hand and bandage his scraped knuckles he makes a small sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.

You are determined not to let him mess things up anymore. So you kiss him first.

At first he doesn’t respond, and you narrow your eyes at him. When you kiss him again, his soft lips move against yours. You purr a little, and interrupt his involuntary laugh with a fiercer kiss, pushing him back, holding your hand against the side of his jaw and curling your fingers on the nape of his neck. He smiles a little, but he doesn’t push back. Instead he grabs your lower lip and nibbles a little with his blunt teeth. You open your eyes wide with a shaky inhale, and are greeted with a close-up view of black lenses. Breaking free, you raise your hands to his glasses.

He grabs your wrists, lightning fast, and holds them. Startled, you draw back, but his grip are tight, and you are caught there.

Then he exhales and guides your hands to them, and you ease them off his face. You fold them and put them gently down before you turn to him.

He has such wide eyes. You’re fascinated by the redness. It’s bright pure red, with darker burgundy striations, and you watch as his eyes adjust to the light and you can see more of it. You raise a hand and touch his cheek where the sunglasses rested with a finger, then the elegant line of his nose. Then, very gently, you touch his eyelids as he closes them, feeling the brush of long eyelashes. You wipe the dampness under his eyes away with all the tenderness you can muster. You are realizing that he was as scared of Bro as you were – maybe more, even – and he’s still scared, and Striders fight with their words as well as their swords, and dead Dave hadn’t directed those words at you. You were just caught in the crossfire. Like he was.

You can see how he looks at you now. His eyes flick over your face, like he’s drinking in the sight. Like he’s trying to fix everything in his memory, to hold it inside him and to draw strength from it when he needs to be strong.

Then he twines his long elegant fingers into the hair at the nape of your neck and pulls you close again, and you let your eyes close.

\-----

You both are lying on the floor. You have discovered that humans’ skin is much more sensitive than trolls’, and are taking full advantage of it by mouthing Dave’s jaw and neck, making sure to keep your “buzzsaw teeth” away from his skin. He keeps muttering something about hickeys and “totally going to get you back for this” in between sighs and uncool trembling.

Then you wrap your arms around him and breathe a sigh into his shoulder. His hand comes up and rubs your shaved scalp, and the sensation makes you purr softly. You don’t have to look up to know Dave’s smirking. He starts working his hands into your mohawk.

“Dear sweet jegus, do trolls not comb their hair or something, or do you just like the wild untamed look?”

You can feel his voice rumbling in his chest. “iT'S, nOT REALLY A THING WE DO, bECAUSE FASHION IS STUPID,”

“This is practically basic hygiene, numbnuts.” You let him finger comb your hair until it’s lying more or less docilely on one side.

“It’s three A.M. you know.”

“iT'S, uHH, yOUR FAULT, fOR COMING BY, sO LATE,”

“Yeah but you got some sleep in. Sort of. Um.”

“aRE YOU, uH, tIRED?”

“Remember when I said I’d rather not sleep?”

You think about it, idly running fingers up and down his ribs, making him squirm.

“Hey, get your freaky fingers away from my ribcage, you’re ruining my peace of mind.” He’s laughing breathlessly and twisting away, cheeks flushing, even white teeth flashing in the dark. You seize the opportunity to kiss him again, and he looks up at you. His eyes are red, but in the wrong place; you can see little red capillaries sneaking into the whites of his eyes, and the skin under his eyes is purplish.

“mAYBE, yOU SHOULD SLEEP, yOU LOOK, uH, rEALLY TIRED,”

“I’d really rather not.”

“mAYBE YOU WOULDN'T, lAND IN, tHAT PARTICULAR DREAM BUBBLE?”

He flicks his eyes away. They’re really rather expressive, surprisingly. You guess hiding them behind shades meant he didn’t have to practice keeping his eyes in line with the rest of his poker face.

“i THINK THAT, yOU SHOULD PROBABLY SLEEP, bECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN UP FOR A LONG TIME, aND, aS I AM CONCERNED, wITH YOUR GENERAL WELFARE, i AM TELLING YOU, vERY FIRMLY, tO GO TO SLEEP,”

He’s looking at you again. The poker face doesn’t crack, but his eyes soften. “Very firmly, huh? Bet your tone of voice isn’t the only firm thing around here.”

“wHOA, hEY, tHAT IS MAYBE MOVING A LITTLE TOO FAST FOR ME-“

He snorts and you smile. Then he sits up, depriving you of a soft resting surface, and you glare at him a little as he leans over you.

“Well, since you tell me to sleep with that STRONG voice,” - you laugh at his Equius impression – “I’ll be a good little boy and listen to you. On one condition. That you sleep with me.”

You think for a second. “oK,”

He looks at you, slightly wide-eyed. “I guess they don’t have that euphemism in troll culture.”

“wHAT, eUPHEMISM?’

“Yeah, never mind. Let’s get ourselves to a slightly less uncomfortable surface, okay?” And he pulls you upright. “My place or yours?”

“i DON'T THINK, yOU WOULD LIKE RECUPERACOONS,”

“My place it is. I’ll even make the bed in the morning.”

“iS THAT, wHAT THEY'RE CALLED?”

“Yes it is. Can you sleep on them?”

“wELL, iT WAS KINDA HARD, tO SLEEP IN RECUPERACOONS ANYWAY, cAUSE MY HORNS, wERE TOO BIG,”

“Poor baby. The troubles you’ve been through because of that enormous rack of yours. Must be terrible, going through life with assets like that. Have a case for the ACLU. ‘Sirs and madams, I have been routinely discriminated against for my huge, curving, horns.’ Shit would get to the Supreme Court, and you, the big man, would have it. It’d make headlines worldwide.”

He leads you out into the hallways, and takes your hand with only a little hesitation. You suspect the empty, echoing hallways might have something to do with that, but that’s alright with you.

It’s only when you reach his bed that he looks at you awkwardly.

“My usual procedure is not going to work so well with you here.”

“wHAT'S YOUR, uSUAL PROCEDURE?”

“Don’t worry about it. Humans love sleeping in skinny jeans and shirts.”

“oH,” You realize something. “i GUESS, wITHOUT SLIME, i DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE, eITHER, sO THAT IS, a BENEFIT TO SLEEPING IN BEDS,” The foreign word feels exciting on your tongue.

He shucks off his shoes and hops into the messy bed. “Come on then.”

You look at him a little worriedly. “wHAT DO YOU, uHH, dO?”

He rolls his eyes. “Come here and I’ll show you.”

It’s a little difficult, arranging yourselves so that you’re not smacking him in the face, but eventually you’re lying on the _pillow_ with his head on your shoulder and his breath ghosting across your chest.

Your eyelids are fluttering closed when he speaks, face pressed into your chest. “Tavros, if I have…nightmares, will you wake me up?”

“wELL, oF COURSE, dEFINITELY,”

“Okay.”

He doesn’t have nightmares.


	11. Chapter 11

Dave talks in his sleep. You find it utterly adorable.

You wake to the sound of mumbling. Blinking your eyes open, you wonder for a second why you’re lying flat on a soft surface with something rather heavy lying on you. Then you remember, and look down to see that Dave’s thrown a leg across yours, and that he twined his fingers with yours in his sleep. His pale eyelashes fan across his cheek, and there’s a little furrow between his eyebrows.

“No, I’m just telling you to…” You try to catch the rest, but Dave’s gone quiet. Then, “Not anything you did, but I might’ve done something. In the future.” He’s carrying on a conversation with his dream bubble self, you realize. One of them, at least. “Just watch out.”

He takes a deep breath and burrows deeper into the blankets, freeing up the arm he’d been laying on for you to wrap around his shoulders.

It’s really a comforting weight, you realize. Pleasantly solid. You’re about to let yourself slip back into sleep when he jerks upright with a gasp, looks around, realizes that it’s far too bright and puts his sunglasses on. When he turns around, the familiar black lenses look at you.

“Oh. There you are.” He runs his hand through his pale blond hair, leaving it mussed and falling every which way. “Good morning.”

“iS THAT A, uH, hUMAN GREETING, fOR WHEN TWO PEOPLE, uHHH, wAKE UP TOGETHER?”

“Yeah, Tavros. It’s an incredibly sacred phrase, used only when two people have been joined in the bonds of matrimony and consummated their love –“

“wAIT, wHAT, i'M PRETTY SURE, tHAT'S NOT WHAT IT MEANS,”

“It’s too early for me to be breaking out my best material for you, Tavros. Gotta keep some mystery in this relationship. Oh wait, it’s not early at all. Think we’re late for something.”

He scrambles out of bed, pulling his shirt off as he goes. You avert your eyes, but then you realize you saw something. A lot of things. Scars, actually. Some neat clean lines, others jagged and raised, some puckered and discolored. It’s only when he turns around to ask why you’re still in bed and finds your horrified eyes on his chest that he freezes, and pulls a clean shirt down hurriedly.

“Hush, Tavros. Now is not the time.”

“bUT DAVE –“

“Not one of the things I want to talk about right now. Come on, we’re late for the briefing.”

“dAVE, iS THAT NORMAL-“

“If you don’t want to change that’s cool with me.”

You pull out a clean shirt, but then hesitate, looking at Dave. He stares back, until he realizes and flushes slightly. “Yeah, I’ll just be waiting for your slow ass outside.”

You didn’t really want him to see how the metal goes up to your waist. You join him outside and you both run to the transportalizer, to the computer room.

Karkat typically glares at the two of you as you walk in, but thankfully he restrains his comments to “FUCKASSES” for the both of you. You see some of the trolls looking over speculatively, and you quickly sit down.

“TO RECAP FOR THE IDIOTS WHO WALKED IN LATE, AND THE IDIOTS WHO HAVEN’T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION – ERIDAN I’M TALKING AGAIN. THANK YOU. – WE KNOW HOW SBURB LOCKS ONTO TARGETS AND HOW IT SENDS METEORS PLACES. WE’RE GOING TO USE IT TO FIND WHEN LORD ENGLISH ENTERS OUR UNIVERSE – THAT’S THE TROLLS’ UNIVERSE – AND WE’RE GONNA MURDER THE GRUBFUCKER. YEAH, I KNOW HE’S GOT THE WHOLE TIMELINE OF OUR UNIVERSE TO PICK FROM, AND I AM WELL AWARE THAT ‘HE’S ALREADY HERE’ AND ALL THAT DRAMATIC HORSESHIT. EQUIUS STOP SWEATING, AND YES THAT’S AN ORDER. BUT RIGHT NOW WE’RE BEYOND HIS REACH, AND WHEN HE COMES TO FIND US IN SIX DAYS, WE WON’T BE HERE ANYMORE. HOPEFULLY WHEN HE ENTERS, HE’LL BE A LITTLE BIT WEAKER THAN OTHERWISE.”

“D --> But what if he is as STRONG as ever?”

“WE THINK WE HAVE AN ADVANTAGE. YOU SEE-“

Dave stands up. “Let’s let the time heroes explain what they do best, shall we?”

Everybody turns to look at him, and you hastily avert your eyes from his ass.

“Aradia, would you like to go first?”

“sure thing dave! always a gentleman!” You have to admit you are extremely jealous of her wings as she flutters to the front with Dave. You’re also kinda jealous that she’s standing – no, floating – next to him. And then you flush horribly as you realize you did leave purplish marks on his jaw and down his neck.

You convince yourself that no one is looking at you. It’s working really well. You can almost believe it.

“you see, when we escaped here after the scratch, we – that is, dave and i – think we also escaped from the trap of paradox space. we suspect that paradox space is an aspect a universe takes on when lord english enters, one of the many signs of a universe he’s marked for consumption. this is naturally fostered by sburb. a healthy universe, one that’s not likely to end, would not have the imprints of paradox space upon it, and time would flow linearly. this is what we’re going to aim for!”

“IF WE HAVE TO TEAR IT FROM HIS SKINNY, COLD, DEAD, CORPSE.” Karkat has never looked scarier.

“dave, would you like to tell them the rest? you’re the one who figured it out!”

“Don’t get too excited, ladies and gentlemen and Spiderbitch-“ she hisses at him –“this is only wild speculation on my humble part, but I think that since we’re outside the confines of paradox space – and Lord English only operates in paradox space – we can surprise the bastard. We can change history.”

“Would you care to explain further, my dear brother, and save the melodrama? For example, if we ‘change history,’ will we still exist?”

“This may not make much sense, sis, but in order to get time to work linearly when it hasn’t been, you have to get even less linear.”

“You’re absolutely correct. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“rose, that is a very good point, but trust dave and i! we mostly know what we’re talking about!”

“:33

“guys its t0tally c00l t0 f0rget ab0ut the hacker wh0 made this p0ssible –“

“THIS IS NOT A QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION, EVERYBODY SHUT UP NOW.” It gets very hard to disagree with Karkat when he takes that tone, if only because you can’t hear yourself think. “MEETING ADJOURNED. GO PRACTICE MORE. THIS TIME MAKE SURE TO STRIFE WITH TELEPORTATION GOING ON BECAUSE WE’RE GOING TO BE DOING WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH OF IT.”

Dave waves goodbye to you. He’s going to be even busier as the time draws near, you reflect.

You’re looking for Jade, who seems to have disappeared, when Vriska gets you alone.

“soooooooo, tavros, i see you've 8een keeping questiona8le company!”

” dAVE, iSN'T QUESTIONABLE, cOMPANY, vRISKA, aND IT'S NOT VERY NICE TO, uHH, sAY SO,”

“oh, tavros, it's not the person! exactly. it's what you've no dou8t 8een DOING.” And she does the stupid winky thing where her seven-pupiled eye closes and the other keeps staring maliciously. You’re starting to get angry.

“iT IS ABSOLUTELY, nONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, aT ALL,”

“8ut it is, taaaaaaaavros! wh8ever happened to those days when we were, you know, massacring imps together, hmmmmmmmm????????”

“iF YOU ARE REFERRING, lIKE I THINK YOU ARE, tO THE TIME WHEN YOU, uHHH, kISSED ME, aND THEN MADE ME KISS YOU, iT WAS NOT AT ALL, mUTUAL, aND I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'RE, uHH, bRINGING IT UP, bECAUSE WE DISCUSSED THIS,”

“okayyyyyyyy, so flushed didn't work out, so wh8? wh8 i've 8een wondering a8out is why you put a human in that quadrant! or ANY quadrant!”

You flush with anger and embarrassment. “wE HAVEN'T DISCUSSED, aNYTHING OF THE SORT, yET, aND I WOULD PREFER IF YOU WOULD, uHH, rEFRAIN FROM SPECULATION, aND, iT'S, aGAIN, nONE OF YOUR _BUSINESS_.”

“8ut this is highly inappropri8 8ehavior! i didn't train you to 8e like this!”

“yOU DIDN'T TRAIN ME, tO BE ANYTHING, yOU'RE JUST A BULLY, aND A HYPOCRITICAL ONE TOO, wE WERE ALL THERE WHEN JOHN AND KARKAT BECAME MATESPRITS, oR DID YOU FORGET HOW YOU BROKE ALL THE COMPUTERS?”

She’s flushed now too, azure staining her cheeks, fangs showing. But she forces a grin. “well, i never expected you to talk to me like that, Tavros! just goes to show, humans will 8reak your heart every time!”

Now you feel bad. “vRISKA, yOU ARE KIND OF NOT A NICE PERSON, aLSO, pRONE TO MAKING FORCEFUL ADVANCES, aND WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY IS THAT, yOU ARE THE PROBLEM, nOT JOHN, aND MAYBE, wAIT, nOT MAYBE, dEFINITELY, yOU SHOULD TRY NOT CAUSING SO MANY PROBLEMS.”

Yeah, she’s definitely hurt. It’s amazing how, after learning to read Dave, everyone else seems to be wearing their emotions on their sleeves. She’s also looking at you with a respect you’ve never seen in her before.

Then she pulls one of those mood swings that always confuse you. “Well, just keep up the good work then!!!!!!!!” And she’s gone.

It takes until you find Jade, fifteen minutes later, asleep behind the couch, that you realize you stood up to Vriska. And won.

\-----

Jade comes awake when you shake her. You’ve seen this before, watching through Trollian and now in real life. You’re not surprised when she grabs the hand you meant to help her up with and pulls you down sitting next to her.

“Tavros, are you all right with this?”

“wHICH, tHIS, aRE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

“If you’re not comfortable with Dave, you should let him know!”

“oH, uH, bUT I AM TOTALLY, cOMFORTABLE WITH DAVE,”

“I know trolls have their super complicated quadrants and stuff, and maybe you should explain them to him!”

You think you explained them to him already. Maybe?

“The _fate_ thing, Tavros! The fate part!”

“oH,,,wHY?”

“Well we only have one quadrant and that’s the flushed one, but humans…” She trails off and pats your hand. “Fate is not such a big part of love for us! I mean, in fairy tales and stuff it is, but not so much in real life. And I’ve always thought that a lot of relationship problems could be avoided by just laying out expectations beforehand, at least from what I’ve heard from the others!”

“oH,,,”

“I’m pretty sure Dave feels the same way that you do, but,” and here she takes your face and squishes it between her palms, “you should definitely tell him anyways!”

“oKAY,”

“Awesome! You guys are so cute together! Let’s go practice!”

You’re not really sure what the point is, but nothing bad could come out of this at all. Not even a little bit. This is definitely a conversation you want to be having.

You think you should work on your mental sarcasm.

As you struggle to keep up with Jade’s skipping, her iron grip on your hand never slackening, you think that maybe you are both a little too young for conversations like that. Even if the very first moment you met him in person, you felt a shock down to your robotic toes that you refused to acknowledge even to yourself. You still haven’t acknowledged it. Not one bit.

You murder imps a little more fiercely than usual.

And then you forget all about it when Equius presents you with Jolly Roger, undoubtedly the most graceful and powerful steed in all of the history of paradox space. Also, _he breathes fire_.

When Dave finally comes by, you offer to give him a ride.

“dO NOT WORRY, hE IS COMPLETELY TAME,” You fight to keep Jolly Roger from pretending he is a boxer and knocking Dave out.

Dave’s giving you a look. Well, it’s the same look, but with nuances of incredulity and “fuck no.”

“bUT DAVE HE IS SO AWESOME,” Now you’re keeping Jolly Roger from pretending Dave is a marshmallow and toasting him. You think you may have to work on teaching him about people who _are_ allowed to be close to you. You are beginning to suspect that Equius may made him a little more spirited and STRONG than you necessarily asked for. But you don’t care because Jolly Roger is the best steed in the universe. All the universes.

“Yeah, I’m definitely gonna get on that thing, once it’s an inert hunk of metal, incapable of doing any harm, except maybe causing tetanus.”

“dAAAAAVE,”

“Taaaaaavros.”

“pLEASE?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“bUT DAVE, i WOULD BE SUPER PLEASED, aND I KNOW JOLLY ROGER WOULD BE TOO,” You prevent him from pretending Dave is a road and trampling him underfoot. “aND YOU TOTALLY KNOW YOU WANT TO, uHH, rIDE,,, rIDE ME,”

Now his look is tinged with humor. “Ha. You wish. Just cause I’m Texan doesn’t mean I’m a cowboy. Or that I want anything to do with horses. But I might take you up on that other offer. That is, after I’m done scraping all the bitches off me.”

You affect a shocked glance. It’s unfortunate because you raise your hands to your face to do so and Jolly Roger takes it as a chance to get a little excited, and you have to back him up a few steps to get him to focus. “dAVE, wHY WOULD YOU EVER SAY SUCH LEWD THINGS TO ME, i AM AN INNOCENT FLOWER,”

“Oh, bullshit. Don’t you go trying to pull Egbertian maidenly blushes.”

“aDMIT IT, yOU LOVE MY, uH, mAIDENLY BLUSHES,” You frown a little, absent-mindedly stopping Jolly Roger from chewing on Dave’s hair. “wHAT'S A MAIDEN?”

Dave snorts. “It’s one of those things that I’m always covered in, like bitches and hos. Just can’t stay away. Oh no wait, it’s like Wendy in Peter Pan. Pupa Pan. Whatever.”

Now he’s looking at you slightly worriedly, and you’re aware that you’ve raised your hands to your mouth to conceal the very high keen. Jolly Roger's ears go back, and you wish you could tell him it's not a bad noise. You settle for keeping him from biting Dave (Equius made his teeth buzzsaws! So cool) and stroking his neck.

“yOU THINK, i'M LIKE WENDY, iN PUPA PAN?”

“Oh fuck, what have I done –“

“dOES THAT MEAN, yOU ARE, tHE PUPA PAN, tO MY WENDY?”

You know that look. It’s the look when he wants to facepalm but he’s too cool to do so. It doesn’t stop you from staring at him with huge, tear-filled little barkbeast eyes.

He takes a careful look around, making sure no one’s in earshot. Then he leans in close, one hand closing on Jolly Roger’s reins, the other on your knee.

“Yeah, I think that’s a fair analogy. Although I dislike being compared to douchebags like that.”

You enter into the familiar argument with Dave, extra enthusiastic in the glow of a confirmed matespritship. You’re aware, though, that Dave didn’t see Vriska, but that you did, from your superior height, and that she was staring at the two of you, an unreadable expression on her face.


	12. Chapter 12

You’re exhausted after a long day. Everyone was furiously strifing, and the high, slightly tense spirits remained throughout dinner. Eventually the noise gave you a headache, and now you’re sitting in Dave’s music room. You’re not listening to anything. You just like the quiet and the smooth, cool feel of his equipment under your fingers.

And then Dave shows up, and the two of you sit leaning against each other and the wall in companionable silence. He falls asleep after a little while, head slumping against your shoulder.

So you pick him up – he’s so very light – and carry him back to his respiteblock – no, _bedroom_. It’s hard to rearrange him while he’s asleep, so you let him rest in your lap after you pull off his shoes. You surreptitiously run a finger up and down his back. When you concentrate, you can find the bumps and lines of scars under the shirt, and you have a mental map of them in your head, lines crisscrossing and curving, when you fall asleep too.

You wake up from a dream in which you and Aradia are FLARPing like old times to find Dave twisting in your arms, heels pressed against the bed, mouth pressed into a thin line and fists clenched in your shirt. He’s not saying anything, but a low whimper is coming from his throat. Fear clenches your gut in hot fingers, and you try to wake Dave up.

It’s hard because he refuses to let go of your shirt, and when you try to untangle his fingers he makes a broken noise that you thought Dave could never make. So you shake him, call his name, eventually slap him. It takes three slaps before he’s brought shuddering into consciousness. It takes long minutes of soothing before he’ll even look at you, and longer before you think you can talk without him shattering.

“aRE YOU, oKAY,”

He takes a shivery breath. And then another. When they keep coming, and your shirt starts getting damp, you realize he’s crying.

You try to lift his head so you can look at him, but he wraps his arms around you, fingers digging into your back and buries his face in your shoulder. “I’m not giving you up. I’m not. I don’t care. I won’t.”

“yOU DON'T, hAVE TO,”

“Why does he think he has any say over me anymore. I’m alive. He’s dead. He should stay that – that way… that makes me a terrible person, doesn’t it.”

He’s shaking under your hands. You can feel the anger and the grief fighting inside him, and you want to soothe him so badly. But before you can do anything, he’s up and staring at the shitty swords lining the opposite wall.

You barely hear him whisper, “I just want a clean break,” before he seizes one, destroys the turntables lying under them, and flashsteps out.

You follow him, but it takes a little more time than you would prefer because this time he tried, somewhat, to hide his tracks from you, but you are the best – well, okay, you’re at least pretty decent at it – at tracking, and plus you know where he goes anyways. He’s on the roofs.

You suspect that he loves the rooftops because he feels free there, like he could fly off the edge of the world and away. Away from everything.

When you find him, he’s contemplating the shattered remains of what looks like at least five different swords, all broken into glimmering steel fragments. He seemed to have avoided most of the shrapnel when breaking them, but there are red lines on his hands and face where he didn’t dodge fast enough.

He doesn’t struggle when you pull his arms towards you and start bandaging them with strips from your shirt, and you glare at him while you do it.

“dAVE, bREAKING THINGS FOR REVENGE IS OKAY IF YOU MAKE SURE NOT TO HURT YOURSELF, aLTHOUGH THAT IS KIND OF NOT HOW REVENGE WORKS OR ANYTHING, aND DO WE REALLY NEED TO BE INJURING OURSELVES RIGHT NOW,”

“You really do care, don’t you.”

You look at him, half of you suspicious and the other half exasperated. “yES, yOU DUMMY,”

“Not much I could do to get you to stop, is there.”

“pROBABLY NOT, aND DON'T DO STUPID THINGS, lIKE LYING, cAUSE I KNOW NOW, oKAY, tHAT YOU THINK EMOTIONS ARE SCARY, aND THAT'S WHY YOU DO THEM,”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“iS THIS HUMAN IRONY AGAIN, oR ARE YOU, jUST, bEING DUMB?”

He slumps forward suddenly. Shocked and extremely worried that he had somehow hit something important, you catch him and lower him to the ground, where upon closer inspection, you just find that he’s asleep. All of a sudden. Even though he had been asleep earlier and shouldn’t be sleepy again for awhile.

And of course, when you look around suspecting an external cause, you find Vriska smiling as sweetly as she can at you.

\-----

You are not at all afraid when you see her. Not even a little bit. It’s probably some faulty wiring that’s making your knees tremble.

“Tavros, can we talk?” And damn if she doesn’t look sincere, but you keep your eyes on her and stand, keeping Dave behind you.

“wHY'D YOU, mAKE HIM FALL ASLEEP?”

“I just wanted to t8lk to you in priv8!” You’re acutely conscious of how vulnerable Dave is, sprawled on the ground behind you, shades slipping down his nose. You reach down and push them back up for him, watching Vriska watch you.

“tHEN TALK,”

“Tavros, I'm sorry.” You didn’t expect that. “You were right! I shouldn't've done all those things, even IF they were for your own good!”

“i DON'T SEE HOW, sOME OF THEM, wERE FOR MY OWN GOOD AT ALL,”

“Silly Tavros! I only ever wanted the 8est for you!” Her grin is turning brittle at the corners, and you are getting really nervous. “That's why, you know, I was flushed for you! At some point. 8ut yeah! You wouldn't've made it through the game without meeeeeeee, would you?”

“i, mIGHT'VE MADE IT, fASTER, iF I HAD FULL USE OF, uH, mY BODY,”

“How many times do you EXPECT me to apologize, jeez! I already said sorry! Eight whole times!!!!!!!! And I made you that awesome rocket didn't I????????”

“vRISKA, i WOULD APPRECIATE IT, iF YOU GOT TO THE POINT,”

A flash of rage crosses her face and is gone so fast that you wonder if you imagined it. The agitated fluttering of her wings, however, remains.

“Look, I still pity you, okay???????? And I'm way 8etter for you than that human! He's not even the same species!”

“vRISKA, yOU'VE BEEN IGNORING ME, aLMOST THE ENTIRE TIME WE'VE BEEN HERE, uNTIL YOU FOUND OUT THAT, uH, dAVE AND I, mAY BE FLUSHED, fOR EACH OTHER,” You sneak a glance back at Dave, hoping he’s awake. Nope, that useless boy is still out cold. You are a little frustrated with him right now.

“He'd NEVER m8ke a good m8sprit! I'm in the 8est position to pity you! Who else would p8ty a cr8pple?!”

Oh no she went and did it. “vRISKA, yOU MADE ME A CRIPPLE, aND AS TERRIBLE A PERSON, aS YOU ARE, yOU ARE NOT THE KIND OF, tERRIBLE PERSON I COULD PITY,” You think a bit, and add, “aT ALL,”

The blue flush high on her cheeks is not comforting, but you’re not in the mood for saving anyone’s feelings. She’s been focusing on you, but now her gaze flashes to Dave and she bares her teeth, raising a hand to her head, and you think you may have made a mistake.

“vRISKA DON'T YOU DARE-“

“Did you know th8 landing in the r8ght dream 8u88les has EVERYTHING to do with luck???????? Sometimes you can even land outside! And I think I have the kn8ck of it now!”

Dave shudders behind you, gasping, his body twisting off the ground, and you’re torn between trying to tear him out of the dream bubble or succumbing to rage and attacking Vriska – which would do absolutely no good. So you drop to the ground and shake Dave’s moaning body while you shout at Vriska, “lET HIM GO, vRISKA-“

“How the hell is _he_ pitia8le, the arrogant 8ast8rd, 8nd I'm _n8t_????????”

“ _No_ -“ Dave chokes out, his face twisting, teeth gritted, and you have to stop this _right the fuck now_ , but you can’t fight Vriska and win, she’s only _God Tier_ -

So you go to Vriska and you kiss that girl until you can’t hear Dave crying out behind you anymore.

But she laughs at you after, sharp teeth bearing a hint of brown, and when you turn you realize that Vriska woke Dave up as soon as you kissed her, and that he saw. And he’s silent as the grave.

The icy numbness spreads, and you’re only dimly aware of Vriska slinging an arm around your shoulders and taunting Dave because you’re focused on those black lenses and how you don’t think you’ll ever get to see his eyes again.


	13. Chapter 13

Dave stands, slowly. Brushes away the dirt and steel fragments from his clothing, new lines cutting across his palms. He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t pay attention to you and Vriska, as if you were just part of the scenery. When he finally looks at you, his face is carefully blank, seemingly ignoring Vriska’s taunts.

Your anger at her resurfaces suddenly, and you realize she’s touching you. You shove her away, sending her stumbling, and reach towards Dave, not knowing what to say, what to do, to fix this.

He just turns and starts walking away. In the stunned vacuum that is your mind, you realize Vriska is still yelling. You ignore her in favor of chasing after Dave.

“dAVE, sHE WAS - i KISSED HER SO SHE'D STOP - sHE DRAGGED YOU OUT OF THE DREAM BUBBLE, fOR THE HORRORTERRORS, dAVE, aND I COULDN'T WIN AGAINST HER IN A FIGHT –“

“Maybe Bro was right. Straight is the default, and I’m an aberration.” You stop in horror and stare at his retreating back.

“dAVE, nO THAT'S WRONG, iT'S NOT TRUE,” and when you catch up to him again you seize his hand and make him look at you. The black lenses reveal as much as they ever did; which is to say, they don’t. “dAVE, i'M SORRY,”

It takes a couple of carefully controlled breaths before Dave speaks. “No, it’s okay. Just gotta work harder at it. Not all things come easy to Striders, you know. Kissing girls is one of them.” And he eases his hand out of yours.

The anger – at yourself, at Vriska, at Dave’s Bro, for _messing Dave up_ \- comes at you all at once, and you seize Dave’s shirt, hiss at him, “i AM GOING TO FIX THIS, rIGHT NOW,” and drag him back to where Vriska is staring hatefully at the two of you.

“Wh8 do you want now? I thought we were all ign8ring me here!”

“vRISKA, pUT US UNDER, pLEASE,”

“Wh8????????”

“yOU MESS EVERYTHING UP, aND YOU HURT PEOPLE, aND I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF, bUT THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO FIX SOME OF IT, oR I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU, vRISKA,”

Vriska understands, and she drops her eyes, but you can tell she’s wavering. Dave, however, is another matter.

“I seem to remember being ‘put under’ not too long ago by Vriska and ending up getting molested by ten thousand horrorterror tentacles, and I don’t see why I would ever want to repeat that experience.”

“hUSH DAVE, i KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO DO,” and then to Vriska, “iF YOU DO THIS, yOU WILL HAVE MADE UP FOR CRIPPLING ME, aND FOR GETTING DAVE MOLESTED BY, uH, hORRORTERRORS, aND FOR TRYING TO RUIN ME AND DAVE, bECAUSE I KNOW THAT DEEP DOWN, yOU DON'T REALLY WANT TO ACT THIS WAY,”

Her eyes jerk to you and Dave, and for a horrible second you don’t think it’s going to work. But she caves, and asks, “Where do you w8nt to go, then?”

“i WANT TO MEET DAVE'S LUSUS,”

“ _What?_ ” Dave is staring at you incredulously. You strengthen your grip on his hand and keep talking to Vriska. “hOW DO I MAKE SURE, i HAVE MY SYLLADEX?”

Vriska is getting interested in spite of herself, and she never passes up a chance to show off. “I can take care of that easy, just give me a second or eight –“

“ _Wait a fucking second, I don’t want_ -“ It doesn’t matter though, because you are now standing in Dave’s old apartment, gripping your Dave’s hand tightly, and facing Bro across the living room.

\----

“I don’t permit faggotry here. This is a decent establishment, no queers allowed.” Bro has his arms folded across his chest, face expressionless except for a line between his eyebrows that suggests deep anger.

Dave is standing stock still beside you. You whisper to him, “wHAT, iS THE CORRECT FORM OF, uH, aDDRESS, tO AN ADULT OF YOUR SPECIES?”

He gives you a sick, unbelieving look. “Mister?”

“oKAY,” Then you turn to Bro. “mISTER BRO STRIDER, wE HAVE THINGS TO, uH, dISCUSS, iN A POLITE AND CIVILIZED MANNER, iF POSSIBLE, bUT I WARN YOU, iF YOU RESORT TO VIOLENCE, wE WILL NOT HESITATE, tO RESPOND IN KIND,”

“Jesus fucking Christ, this is the thing that turned you gay? Why couldn’t you be a healthy, well-adjusted boy with a fetish for puppets instead?”

Dave doesn’t say anything, and from his silence and the look on his face you deduce that this is not polite or civilized.

“i, uH, dON'T THINK THAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IS CALLED FOR,” but you are maybe hoping that he will continue using bad   
language so that you can beat the shit out of him. “tO, uH, sTART THIS DISCUSSION, fROM WHAT I HAVE LEARNED, i THINK YOU MAY HAVE A DISTORTED VIEW OF, uH, hUMAN SEXUALITY-“

“Shut your cocksucking mouth, alien boy.” Bro unsheathes his sword. “Don’t come into my home and make it filthier than it already is –“

“Bro. Shut. Up.” And Dave draws his sword too, but you can see his hands trembling.

“Ain’t this a regular clusterfuck, all us boys with their swords hangin’ out. Where’s yours, alien, or are you gonna shove them up your ass instead -“

You are definitely sure that is neither polite nor civilized. So you concentrate and _change_ -

To the hills outside your hive, the setting sun painting the sky, the twin moons rising over low hills. The warm breeze brings the scent of night-blooming flowers to you, and you suppress the flare of nostalgia as you call Jolly Roger out. You can see Bro’s head tilt minutely as he takes in the new scenery and the addition of a two-ton hellhorse to it. Still, he calls out, “You two pansies done fucking around –“

And you let out an Alternian war whoop, level your lance at his heart, and charge down the hillside, Jolly Roger exhaling sulfurous smoke as he goes. You don’t especially care if you hit him, because you know he can flash step away. It was all worth it just to see him step backwards.

Of course, Dave is backing you up, and when Bro does flash step away Dave heads him off. They clash in a flurry of swords, and you can barely see what is going on because they move _too damn fast_ and you’re afraid of hitting Dave or trampling him. You had always tried to keep him out of close quarters combat before. You waver, wondering whether to dismount or not, but then you come up with a better idea.

While you whirl Jolly Roger around and charge again, trusting that Dave will make sure to get out of the way, you sort of just, reach out, and almost immediately you find a lumbering armored cholerbear minding its own business. At least until you convince it that pursuing the tall, unnaturally fast alien with the smell of stale pizza and human alcohol will be deserving of its time. And you make sure to remind it that claws should be sheathed because we are just going to play with the alien a little, okay?

You catch a strand of thought – _strange alien smells odd, must satisfy curiosity, must hold alien down and snuffle with razor sharp teeth an inch away from his face_ \- as you once again pierce the spot that Bro was a second ago. Jolly Roger is angry. He hates it when prey gets away, so you give him his head and somehow Jolly Roger's mechanical thinkpan can anticipate where Bro is better than your own. The two of you briefly pin Bro between Jolly Roger's buzzsaw teeth and your lance, and you even manage to slash his arm with the side of your lance blade before he flash steps away. He doesn't even do much damage on his way out of your bind; for once you're very grateful that your legs are metal.

Dave actually pauses to stare at the blood on your lance before pressing the attack again, and with his help, you drive Bro towards the hidden cholerbear. Surprisingly fast for its size and armor, the animal pounces on its new playmate, knocking him to the ground and pinning him there.

"Bro!" Dave yells, and scrambles towards the cholerbear. Bro's ninja sword isn't able to do much more than scratch at the cholerbear's armor, so it's just snuffling intently at his face and chest, hunting down pizza smells. It probably does look pretty scary to Dave, you have to admit.

“dAVE, iT'S OKAY, i'M COMMUNING WITH IT, iT WON'T HURT YOUR BRO, uH, mORE THAN NECESSARY!”

In fact the cholerbear is thinking _strange alien thing is scratchy, was itchy there, feels good, good alien, best scratcher_ and not particularly interested in hurting Bro at all. Except for the fore paws planted on his chest to keep him from getting away.

When you and Dave are both done watching Bro wrestle with the cholerbear (which might’ve taken awhile, but eventually caused even Dave to crack a smile), you shout at Bro. “cAN WE TALK, nOW, lIKE CIVILIZED PEOPLE?”

“It’s not fucking civilized to set a fucking bear on someone.”

“uH, wELL, wE CAN LET THE BEAR FIND OUT WHAT YOU TASTE LIKE, iT'S A LITTLE CURIOUS, tO BE HONEST,”

“…Uncle.”

You look at Dave. “wHAT'S AN UNCLE?” But Dave’s staring at Bro with an almost savage expression on his face.

“Say that again, only louder. I couldn’t hear you over cholerbear snuffling.”

“Fuck. You. You win.”

You’re watching Dave carefully, and you think you can identify the emotion that flashed across his face. It’s a look you associate with Terezi and her courtroom dramas. It’s justice, exacted.

Now you just have to exact justice for the rest of what Bro did, and you’ll be done with him. Hopefully forever.


	14. Chapter 14

The cholerbear wanders off; you tell it about a nice group of antlerbeasts two hills over, and it gives you and Jolly Roger a friendly snuffle before it goes. Dave and Bro put away their swords, and you put away your lance. But you let Jolly Roger stay out and enjoy the Alternian air. He doesn’t eat grass or anything, of course. He just likes staring at people. With his soulless eye sockets. You love Jolly Roger.

Everyone takes a minute to assess the damage. Dave’s bleeding through the bandages you applied earlier, and thin cuts have appeared on his sides. You got nicked in the leg; something got messed up and the leg isn’t responding as it should. Bro has the tear in his arm where you lanced him, plus probably some bruises from where the cholerbear leaned on him, but from the way he moves you don’t think he has any broken bones or significant injuries.

Dave stitches and bandages the bleeding rip in Bro’s arm while you watch them both. You’re pretty sure Bro is watching you back but it’s hard to tell behind his pointy shades. And now that the adrenaline has ceased pumping through you – first from the fight with Vriska, and now the dream fight – you’re finding it hard not to long for all the places you loved here. Nighttime has well and truly set in, and the two moons give you a pang of homesickness.

But you can’t take your eyes off Bro, and so you sit and watch as Dave deftly finishes sewing the wound shut and bandages it.

“So I hear you had somethin’ to say about human sexuality, alien.”

Dave’s fingers stop moving for a moment, and you take the opportunity to admire his long fingers before he finishes and comes to sit by you.

“oKAY, yOU KNOW WHAT, i KIND OF HAVE A NAME, iT'S TAVROS NITRAM, aND IT'S NOT POLITE TO CALL PEOPLE ALIENS, iT'S LIKE ME CALLING YOU SOFT PINK HORNLESS MONKEYS, aND, uH, i DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW THAT MUCH, aBOUT HUMAN SEXUALITY, oR ANYTHING, i JUST KNOW THAT, iT'S NOT OKAY TO LIKE BOYS, fOR SOME REASON, aND IT MAKES DAVE SAD –“

Dave punches you. “ _Tavros_!”

“sORRY, bUT I REALLY DON'T KNOW, aNYTHING, aBOUT, uH, hUMAN HOMOSEXUALITY, bECAUSE THAT IS NOT A THING, fOR TROLLS,”

Bro stares impassively. “Let me get this straight. You wanted to talk about it. But you don’t know nothin’ about it.”

“wELL, wHEN YOU PUT IT, lIKE THAT, nO,,, bUT IT'S IMPORTANT TO DAVE, tHAT YOU STOP BEING A, uH, a JERK ABOUT IT –“

“ _Okay Tavros_ , that is far too much concentrated feelings talk in here. Shit’s so toxic it’s reaching romcom levels of lethality.”

You frown at him. “dAVE, tHERE'S NOT NEARLY ENOUGH, uH, bLOOD AND TERROR, tO MAKE THIS A ROMCOM,”

“Dave doesn’t want your faggot alien ass around.”

“Yes, I do.” Dave looks almost as startled as you feel. You thought he’d rather talk to his human lusus alone, but you’re not gonna leave Dave if he wants you there.

You set yourself and turn to Bro. “hE, wANTS ME HERE, sO I'M STAYING, uM, eVEN IF I AM NOT THAT HELPFUL,”

But Bro’s not looking at you. He’s looking at Dave, and they have the same impassive look on their faces. If there’s a signal you don’t catch it. Bro says, “Neutral ground.”

And now there’s a building with a steep blue roof and large plate glass windows in front of you. When you look up, the English letters spell IHOP.

“cAN, uH, jOLLY ROGER COME IN? tHE SIGN SAYS, uM, nO PETS,”

Dave looks Jolly Roger over, considering. “Jolly Roger ain’t a pet, Tavros. He’s the fourth horse of the apocalypse. You know, the pale one?”

“nO,”

“Well, there’s no one to say no.”

Jolly Roger comes with you into the restaurant. It’s empty, fake wood chairs and tables with odd alien sauces and condiments arranged neatly on them. You accidently scratch the colored fake beast-skin seats with your claws as you slide into a booth with Dave, Bro sitting across from you.

“wHAT IS THIS PLACE,”

Dave says, “International restaurant for diplomats and negotiators extraordinaire,” at the same time that Bro says, “The true place the UN makes decisions.”

“You see, humans cooperate better over a plate of high fructose corn syrup-“

“Brings out the generosity and charity hidden deep inside their greedy souls-“

“Makes it easier to decide which starving country to give food to-“

“’Last month we gave Sudan our leftovers, how about Belize this time –‘“

“’I suppose we should give something back for all the cheap labor and resources-‘”

“’Maybe they’ll live long enough to buy more of our products.’”

You’re kind of astonished. The pauses in between their sentences were so short as to be imperceptible, and the only indication that Bro was talking was the deeper voice.

They’re looking at each other again. And then plates of food appear in front of them. Bro has a flat disk-shaped thing with, human fruit, you guess, arranged in a smiley face. There’s fluffy white stuff covering where the eyes should be in the shape of Bro’s glasses. Dave has a stack of the same disks, only they’ve got sort of brown cream stuff in between them and a dollop of the fluffy white stuff on top.

They look at each other’s plates approvingly. Then Dave notices you don’t have anything, frowns a little, and a tall glass filled with pale brown stuff and topped with _more_ fluffy white stuff and a round red fruit you recognize as the Earth equivalent of a cherry. You poke it.

“dAVE, wHAT'S THIS WHITE STUFF, aLL OVER EVERYTHING,”

“Too easy, Tavros.”

“wHAT?”

“Just try it, you’ll love it. Called a milkshake. Suck it down.”

You do. It’s – it’s -

“sWEET, dAVE, iT’S SWEET, hOLY TROLL JEGUS,”

And you set to sucking that thing down your throat because it’s so delicious and feels so good in your mouth, and you hardly notice when Dave facepalms.

You do notice when he and Bro go back to staring at each other. The silence stretches, until Dave speaks.

“Bro, I’m gay.”

Bro spears a red fruit with his three-pronged eating utensil, and eats it slowly. Dave pours some more brown stuff slowly over his flat pastry disks. Humans have a thing for brown stuff, you note.

“I noticed, little bro.”

The muscles along Dave’s jaw relax a bit. He slices into his disks. “We fight in the Veil. Practice, you know. I’ve had to haul John’s windy ass out of trouble more times than he’s watched Con Air.”

You look sideways at him, still slurping down the _milkshake_ as fast as you can. What does that have to do with anything? Is human sexual orientation related to fighting skill? That doesn’t make sense though, John is also “gay” and he’s good enough at strifing that Karkat will even admit it.

“Yeah? You ride sidesaddle on that stud over there while he charges to the rescue?”

You’re not sure whether he’s referring to you or Jolly Roger, but suddenly a great whopping headache strikes and you let your head get acquainted with the table.

“dAVE, eITHER YOUR HUMAN BEVERAGE IS DEFINITELY POISONOUS, tO TROLLS, oR MY THINKPAN HAS BEEN ICED,”

“That’s called brain freeze on Earth, dumbass. It’ll go away.”

“tHIS IS, uH, rATHER LIKE ALTERNIAN FOOD, iN THAT IT’S TRYING TO KILL ME,”

“Suck it up, sweetcheeks, we’re busy here.”

And after a little bit it does go away. You give the empty glass to Jolly Roger, who crunches the glass to dust in his teeth.

“Actually, this picture of manliness incarnate is gonna help me find a certain Lord English. And give him a talking-to about eating universes.”

“Yeah, I can definitely imagine a Strider accepting help. That shitty sword getting too heavy for you? Afraid of breaking a nail if you swing it too hard?”

“The opposite, actually. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

They’re staring at each other again. The silence is only broken by Jolly Roger’s glass grinding.

“mR STRIDER, dAVE IS, uM, mORE DANGEROUS, tHAN WHEN WE FIRST MET, wHAT WITH ALL THE PRACTICE STRIFE, aND STUFF, aLSO NOW HE DOESN'T HAVE TO FIGHT ALONE, sO, uH, tHAT HELPS,”

Your words seem to have no effect. Dave stabs a wedge and eats it slowly.

“What’d you do to get stuck with this guy? Piss off your gay derpy friendleader?”

“Marvelous assessment of his sexual orientation, Bro. And no. I picked him.”

Wait what are they talking about? And your mouth runs away with you again. “aRE WE, uH, sTILL TALKING ABOUT STRIFING, bECAUSE, yEAH, hE, uM, pICKED ME, iN THAT SITUATION, iF IT'S STILL STRIFING WE'RE TALKING ABOUT,,,” Dave kicks you under the table and you shut up.

It’s too late though; Bro’s looking at you now, and you stamp down the urge to look away. “Tell me why, Nitram.”

“Why’re you asking him –“

“Let him talk. You wanted to talk, didn’t you?” The way he stabs a whitish slice of fruit is not encouraging.

“uH, wELL, i WONDERED ABOUT THAT, aT FIRST, bUT THEN I REALIZED, tHAT, uM, eVEN THOUGH DAVE IS REALLY GOOD, aT STRIFING, iT'S EASIER TO, wELL, hAVE SOMEONE WATCHING YOUR BACK, wHICH IS A CONCEPT WE ACTUALLY HAD A PROBLEM GRASPING UNTIL LIKE HALFWAY THROUGH THE GAME, bUT THEN WE FIGURED IT OUT AND, iT MADE US BETTER, aT DESTROYING THINGS, aND IT'S REALLY A MATTER OF KNOWING WHAT THEY'RE NOT SO GOOD AT AND THEN BEING GOOD AT THAT, oH, aND ALSO IT HELPS, kNOWING SOMEONE IS LOOKING OUT FOR YOU, aND THAT YOU WON'T BE LEFT, bECAUSE, uM,,,” You trail off, because Bro is staring at you hard while Dave’s ears are turning red. “yEAH?”

“I seem to remember teaching Dave rule number one: not to have any weak points at all. Rule number two was don’t tell anybody your weak points -”

“Maybe that was why I never told you I was gay, Bro.”

“Maybe you were waiting for a sufficiently limp-wristed lisping drag queen to come along.”

“sORRY?”

“You saw how Tavros fights. Ever held a lance? Fucking heavy. He’s half Terminator too.”

“i, aM NOT SURE, i AM THE CAUSE OF DAVE, bEING GAY?”

“This is the progression of events. First: Dave meets you. Second: Dave’s having sloppy makeouts with an alien troll boy. You guys decided who’s top and who’s bottom yet?”

“Want to know when I realized I was gay, Bro?” The scenery outside the plate glass windows changes from the Alternian hills to a squat concrete building. You realize this is the mythical place Dave’s always taking you to: _school_.

And he’s there, shorter than he is now, pointy shades just like his brother’s covering a face still retaining wriggler-fat, and he’s kissing a boy the same age – it’s just a small one, not even close to the kind you and Dave have been indulging in, but the jealousy rises anyways – but an adult human female sees them, screeches, and tears them apart – and then you’re looking at the Alternian hills again. You cast a glance at Dave, who raises a corner of his mouth and takes your hand under the table. You are reassured.

“I took you out of that school when you were ten.”

“Yeah.”

“You were getting beat up. For that.”

“Actually I got hauled in for beating them back, remember? I’m still pretty deadly with a two-by-four.”

Bro is looking at Dave, while Dave looks out the window nonchalantly. You have no idea what this means.

“Not everyone is out to exploit others’ weaknesses, Bro. Just gotta know who those people are.”

You can sense Bro’s eyes on you. This time, embarrassed, you look away and pet Jolly Roger, who is emitting a continuous cloud of sulfurous black smoke from his nostrils.

“You guys strife pretty well together.” And then Bro takes a slice of Dave’s pastry wedges. Dave’s jaw relaxes completely and this time both the corners of his mouth twitch as he clenches your hand tightly and steals Bro’s red berries with the other.

“You gotta make sure to stretch his ass out first. Use plenty of lube, and I’m sure you can scrounge up some condoms on that rock of yours –“

“ _Bro, not a conversation I want to have_ -“

“You had better be on top, I did not raise you to get fucked up the ass –“

“eW, iS THAT WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, wHY WOULD YOU DO, UH, THAT, IN THE WASTE CHUTE, iSN’T THAT WHAT NOOKS ARE FOR?”

You are legitimately confused and don’t understand why they’re staring at you, Dave’s face slowly getting redder and redder.

“Oh my god. Is that what Terezi meant when she said – no. Not thinking about this.” Dave vengefully stabs his pastry disks.

“Nitram, tell me about your alien biology.”

“dO, i HAVE TO,”

“I will give you a milkshake, Strider style. My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard you know –“

“Bro, this is completely not worth talking about –“

“hUSH, dAVE, mILKSHAKES ARE GOOD, wHEN, tWO TROLLS CONCUPISCENTLY PITY OR HATE EACH OTHER, vERY MUCH, tHEY, uH, pUT THEIR BONE BULGES, iN EACH OTHER'S NOOKS, aND THEN,,,” Okay the next part is just _so_ dirty, you’re blushing just thinking about it, much less saying it out loud, but more milkshakes are a good thing, so “yOU KNOW, b-BUCKETS,”

“Sweet Jesus Tavros, I didn’t know all it took for you to start talking dirty was a fucking _milkshake_ -“

“Shut up, I’m trying to be fucking multicultural here. Is it a tentadick.”

“What, _no_ , this conversation is over –“

“yOU MEAN, dOES IT MOVE, wHAT KIND OF SILLY QUESTION IS THAT, dUH IT MOVES –“

Dave lets go of your hand so he can do a FACEPALM x2 COMBO. Bro has an undeniably smug look on his face.

“I can imagine the internet porn already. Sweaty pale mouthbreathers feverishly pounding out smut for other sweaty pale mouthbreathers to rub one out to –“

“wAIT, dO HUMANS, wORK DIFFERENTLY,”

“I’ll let Dave tell you about it.” The scenery wobbles to Dave’s apartment. Dave removes his hands from his face to reveal a bright blush. The blush disappears when a mountain of smuppets descends upon the both of you. When you’ve extricated yourself, you attempt to prevent Jolly Roger from lighting the impudently jutting plush bottoms on fire while Dave removes one impaled on your horn. And then you’re all standing, facing one another.

“Look out for yourself, little bro. And for this kid too.”

“Yeah. I’m teaching him things you taught me. Never enough Strider swag in the world.”

They look at each other with their patented impassive faces, but you can sense the emotion when they bump fists.

You suppose you can forgive Bro Strider.

“Hey Tavros, let’s go home.”

The joy that floods you when he takes your hand is tempered by the look on Bro’s face. Well, the lack of a look, but it’s a specific kind of lack of a look that you know. So you grope for the words.

“tHANK YOU, fOR DAVE, aND WHO HE IS,”

You and Bro look at each other. When he reaches out his hand, you grasp it, and give it one firm shake.

Then you’re realizing you’ve a cramp in your side from lying wrong, and Dave is groaning as he sits up, untangling his fingers from yours. Then, “What the _fuck_ -“

He is covered in red paint. You are covered in blue. You would like the designs drawn on him if they had been drawn by someone who could see. You’re just covered in 8’s on a painted-on pirate costume.

Vriska and Terezi are running for the stairs, cackling. Dave looks over at you and you see two painted red irises on his sunglasses that are pointing in different directions. You show Dave the piece of paper taped to your forehead. It’s a badly drawn SBaHJ comic, starring “Dauv Sirtdr and Tvrass Mirtan.” You manage to decipher the mysterious pictogram meaning ‘sloppy makeouts’ before Dave seizes it, mumbles, “The idiot pile doesn’t stop from getting taller,” and chases after them.

After he gives you a quick but passionate kiss and murmurs, “Thanks,” obviously. Then his painted ass is in hot pursuit of the perpetrators and leaving you with a warm fuzzy feeling.

“wAIT, i NEVER GOT MY MILKSHAKE,”


	15. Chapter 15

_Equius will not be pleased with the fairy cutie mark painted on my robotic bottom_ , you think morosely. All the other paint came off, but maybe this was some sort of permanent deal? You frown at it in the mirror and decide to risk going out in public anyways. You’ve gotta find Dave!

When he opens his door in fresh clothing and clean shades, you can still see traces of paint under his jaw and on the insides of his elbows where he hasn’t finished scrubbing. “Come for more snuggles, Tavros?”

“wOULD YOU LIKE TO, uH, sNUGGLE?”

“Well, I’ve had enough sleep recently. Mind if we stay conscious for awhile?” Oh. Yeah. He stands aside to let you in, but you stay outside, twisting your shirt in your hands.

“sORRY, fOR DROPPING YOU BACK IN, wITHOUT ASKING,”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“aND FOR THE VRISKA, tHING, i KIND OF DIDN'T KNOW, wHAT TO DO, aND THEN, tHE HORRORTERRORS,”

“Hey. Tavros.”

“i GUESS, i COULD HAVE, hANDLED IT BETTER, uM, eVEN IF I'M NOT REALLY SURE HOW,”

“Christ. Just come in.” You feel kind of wretched and look aside. “Fucking hell, did you learn that look from John? Look, it’s cool. You, uh. Shit. Ended up helping, so thanks. Now will you stop apologizing and get in here?” And to prove he’s serious he shoves his shades up and looks at you with those arresting red eyes of his and you melt and go in. You ignore his snort as he spots the cutie mark on your ass.

You perch on the edge of his bed while he flops backwards onto it, running a wet hand through his pale hair so it stands up in odd directions. “dID YOU, fIND TEREZI AND VRISKA?”

“Yeah. Took a little convincing – and by that I mean blackmail – for Terezi to apologize and promise never to harass my sleeping form again. And to make sure Vriska wouldn’t either. You can take your beauty sleep in sweet security now.”

“wHAT'S A, uH, bEAUTY SLEEP?”

“Earth ritual that ensures humans stay young and gorgeous forever. May or may not involve the blood of virgins.”

“oH,” You stare at him. He stares back. You’re a little jealous how secure he is in his body. He holds himself like he holds his swords: utterly natural grace combined with rigid precision, and he makes it look easy. It’s just his eyes he’s self-conscious about, the eyes he’s looking at you knowingly with.

“I can see you thinking over there. You’re about as hard to read as ‘See Spot Run.’”

You decipher the Dave-ese. “wILL YOU TELL ME, uH, aBOUT HUMAN BIOLOGY?” The way he flashes you a crooked grin does not bode well, you decide.

Fifteen minutes later you are staring horrified at Dave. “sO, tHEY'RE PARASITES, fEEDING ON THEIR HOST? tHAT'S HOW HUMAN OFFSPRING WORKS?”

“They feed on their host for years. Only eighteen if you’re lucky.”

“aND, aND, hUMAN MALES, iNJECT THE PARASITES, iNTO HUMAN FEMALES,”

“You make it sound so much grosser than it actually is.”

“aND YOU ONLY HAVE HALF OF THE GENITALS?”

“Yeah, see, I never thought I’d be ashamed of the package I got, but you’re starting to make me feel inadequate.”

“dAVE, yOU'RE NOT,,, gONNA MAKE ME A HOST ORGANISM, fOR YOUR 'BABIES,' ARE YOU?”

“Not that I paid attention in biology but I don’t think that’s how it’ll work, no. Anyways, we gotta get married first, big church wedding with the bells ringing and you walking down the aisle in a princess dress and enough lace to make doilies for a thousand grandmas’ parlors.”

“dAVE, i DON'T WANNA GET MARRIED THEN,”

There’s a pause when there should be Dave running his overworked mouth. Then, “Oh. That works too.” He puts his sunglasses back on. What did you do?

“dAVE, wHAT'S GETTING MARRIED?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, it’s not legal anyways.” You frown at him as he sits up and starts taking his shoes off. “Learned everything you never wanted to know about human biology?”

“wELL, i KIND OF, uM, wANTED TO KNOW, jUST IN CASE, eVEN THOUGH WE ARE KIND OF YOUNG, aND ALSO NOT TOTALLY CLEAR ON WHERE, uH, tHIS IS GOING.” He flops back down, shades securely on his face, and looks at you.

“We’re not?”

You wriggle uncomfortably and trace lines on his _sheets_ with a claw. “wELL, i GUESS, tHIS IS AS GOOD A TIME AS ANY, tO BRING THIS UP, bUT TROLLS, uM,,,” This is even more awkward than telling Bro about troll biology, and the black lenses of his shades are hard to face. “dO YOU, bY ANY CHANCE, i WOULD TOTALLY UNDERSTAND, iF YOU DIDN'T, bUT, wHEN YOU MET ME, cOULD YOU MAYBE PERHAPS SAY, tHAT IT FELT LIKE IT WAS POSSIBLE, tHAT MAYBE IT WAS,,,UM, fATE?”

You blush furiously and take to scoring lines in the wall instead to take your mind off the endless void of despair you just tossed yourself into. You are so focused on not panicking and hyperventilating that the touch of his hand on yours makes you jerk in surprise.

“Oh. Are you asking if we’re matesprits?” He stumbles slightly over the word, and you flush even more, yanking your hand away and drawing your knees to your chest.

“hAHA, uM, fORGET IT, jUST A SILLY QUESTION, dOESN'T, hAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH, uH, tHAT,”

“Huh. Didn’t we settle this already?” You give him a sick look. How can he look so calm and almost hopeful when you’re drowning inside? Ass.

“nO, nOT REALLY,,, aSS,”

“If you wanna, then I do too. Just gotta warn you though, on Earth matesprits get married, parasites optional.”

“oH,” _Oh._ That’s what he meant. No more pit of despair for you; you throw yourself at him, knocking the both of you back onto the bed.

“wHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THE, uH, pARASITES WERE OPTIONAL, jEEZ,” You think he’s about to answer but you crush your mouth to his and it gets lost in the sloppy makeouts.

When you come up for air some time later, you can tell Dave’s about to make some snarky comment, but you cut him off. “dAVE, cAN I, uH, tOUCH YOU?”

“Whoa, hold your horses, I’m not that kind of guy –“ You lick a stripe along his jaw. He breathes something suspiciously like a sigh and says, “Okay, I lied, I am _completely_ that kind of guy.”

He captchalogues his shades and then stares at you in bemusement as you grab his hand and run your fingers along his palm. “Oh, this is what you meant? Can we go back to the face-sucking then –“

You tell him, “dAVE, bE MULTICULTURAL,” Your fingers stroke across his wrist. You can feel the tendons flex as he wiggles his fingers at you, but you concentrate on tracing the faint blue lines of his veins up to the crease of his elbow, where you lose them. You content yourself with the inside of his upper arm, feeling how firm he is under his thin soft skin. You prod his shoulder, and he agreeably slips his shirt off, watching your fingers.

You’re looking at the expanse of scars across his torso. When you finally press a finger to one, Dave twitches slightly. His eyes shift away and back. “When I did something Bro didn’t expect – moved too slow or too fast or in the wrong direction – “ He gives a casual shrug that is belied by his gaze. You give an old sword wound on his shoulder a chaste kiss, and he relaxes. Then you progress.

As you touch each one, he tells you what it’s from. “Sword. Sword. Shuriken. Firework. Sword. That’s my nipple. They belong there. Stop poking them. Sword. Smuppet – don’t ask. Sword. Bullet, actually. Bluh, don’t go sticking your fingers into people’s belly buttons, that’s not a scar. Sword. Sword. Shuriken. Sword.”

You stroke a finger along his hip bone and he inhales. The skin just inside is soft and smooth, but Dave very gently grabs your hand, and then looks like he’s searching for words. “Think that’s enough. Is it your turn yet?”

“i, uH, aRE YOU SURE, i CAN KEEP GOING, iF YOU LIKE,” Dave raises a single eyebrow and somehow it’s a lot more effective with his shades off and his red eyes looking at you. His other hand is tangled in the sheets, and his breathing is a shade faster than usual, and your warm adoration battles your nervousness.

“Wanna be multicultural.” He untangles his other hand from the sheets and strokes the inside of your forearm.

You confess, “uM, i LIED, tHAT'S, nOT ACTUALLY A THING, wE DO ON ALTERNIA, uH,,, i JUST WANTED TO TOUCH YOU,” He stills, fingers cool against your skin, then snorts.

“Sneaky bastard. Offer still stands.” He sweetens the deal by moving behind you, arms wrapping around your waist, and nibbling your ear. You don’t answer – you’re not sure what to say – but when his hands shift down and under your shirt you grab his wrists and hold them still. You’re not hyperventilating at all. Not even a little bit.

“Ow. Hey. You could’ve just said no.” He flexes his hands in your grip, but you don’t let go because – because –

“Tavros, hey, what’s going on here? You don’t say something soon, I’m gonna have to admit to some confusion, and admitting confusion is not what I do.”

“dAVE, i'M,,,,,,,,,,”

“You’re what? Confused? Straight? My father? My secret long-lost fraternal twin given to a different mother? Cheating on me with my best friend who is plotting to murder me for my fortune and Strider swag - fuck, I’ve watched too many telenovelas.”

Your face stretches a tiny bit in what, with a bit of exaggeration, could be called a smile. You decide to get it over with. “i'M CRIPPLED,”

You let go of his wrists and slump forward, elbows on your robotic knees, refusing to think about what he’s going to say, because you know he’s going to say, “Oh yeah, you’re super lame and nobody wants to be in a quadrant with half a person plus some mechanical shit. Thank you for realizing what’s best for me, I’m gonna go get all the bitches now.” You are absolutely sure this is what’s going to go down.

“That’s what this is about? You’ve got less wrong with you than I do. Fact is, you’re practically more impressive than some of these douchebags. Making it through the game without a working lower torso is not exactly the mental and physical equivalent of not drowning in your morning oatmeal. If anybody on this rock had any goddamn sense those bitches’d be clinging to you like magnets. As it is I’m the only one with taste and I’m kind of okay with that. You’re fucking badass, and even I, Dave Strider, will admit it. You know how many people have made that list? I can count them on one hand.”

You sit very quietly while a revolution occurs in your mind. You’re taking a cue from Dave, and not showing how much you’re flipping the fuck out. You always thought you were an impediment. Wow. You’ve never thought about it this way before.

“wOW, i, uH, nEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT THAT WAY BEFORE,,, oH MY GOD, dAVE, yOU'RE RIGHT”

He pulls you back, flush to his chest and says in the fondest tone a Strider can manage, “Don’t sound so surprised. Idiot.”


	16. Chapter 16

Dave is somewhere. You are sitting in the music room, which has been sadly neglected for some time. You don’t know if there will be time to hear Dave play his music again, because in twenty-four hours you are going to fight Lord English.

You’re not exactly thrilled. If you were to describe your emotions to an imaginary third party, you would say you felt “uH, wELL, pRETTY TERRIBLE, aCTUALLY, kIND OF DREAD AND FEAR OF LOSING, uH, pEOPLE, aND ALSO MORTAL TERROR,” There is no reason to tell anyone though, because they’re all feeling the same way. At least during the game, you had an extra life. At least you’ve never died. Alternate Tavroses apparently have. And of course, alternate Daves. And then you start wondering, what if this Dave dies and you’re alone for the probably very short rest of your life? After long hours staring at the ceiling – during which you’re pretty sure Dave doesn’t sleep either – you’ve decided that you’d rather die first (preferably making sure Dave wouldn’t) because Dave could maybe survive your death better than you could survive his. You also won’t have to see him lifeless (again). You wonder if this makes you selfish. You wonder if Dave came to the same conclusion, and if so, whose preferences would come to pass.

When you watch him, you see how he slows down fractionally around the other humans. How he lingers with them a little longer than he used to, how he holds a touch a moment longer, how he looks at them when he thinks they aren’t looking. You know that if they – were lost, he would blame himself, rack himself with guilt, with grief, because he couldn’t stop it. You know he would keep going. You would feel the same way about your troll friends, even the ones you don’t like very much. But it’s worse for him; there are twelve of you. Only four of them.

You hope Dave realizes they feel the same way about him. You hope that he realizes that they don’t resent the time he spends with you. They just regret that this one lonely month was all the time you had to find each other. You know, because they told you. There have probably been many tears shed in private, where no one will see the lonely groups of two holding each other. You’re willing to bet you’re not the only one who’s been settling things with old and new friends.

Karkat pulled you aside two days ago and told you – rather bluntly – that he was sorry he told you to stop playing games for girls when you got tossed off a cliff by Vriska. You told him it was okay. You told him that he was the best leader they could have had. He looked at you for a long moment before he turned and went back into the room, yelling to cover up the waver in his voice. Later, you saw Kanaya sobbing into a scarf Rose had made her, and Vriska pulling her awkwardly into an embrace. Gamzee kidnapped you for a terrible rap session, but your hearts weren’t in it. Instead, you held his hand while he told you how the voices come out of the hole in his head, and he can’t stop eating the sopor slime or they tell him to do things, and he gave you a haunted look that made you go look for Karkat.

Sometimes all sixteen of you gather in one room, talking nervously, rehashing old arguments, willing to bear the close confines so that you all can drink in the sights and sounds and sensations of each other – to hold them in your minds, so that ~~when~~ if they go, you will have something for consolation. Sometimes just seeing another person – even one you dislike – hurts too much, and people have to get away, to try to build the walls against grief now so that it won’t hurt so much later. That’s what you’re doing now – building up the walls around your terror and your love, so that you can keep going.

You’re keenly aware that every second you spend alone is a second without your friends, without seizing the chance to mentally freeze their images and sear them in your memory. You’re perfectly aware of it. You imagine it’s much, much worse for Dave.

He doesn’t need you to tell him it’s a bad idea to go back, rewind, reverse. He doesn’t need you to tell him that making unnecessary time loops is not a smart thing to do. He knows, but the fact that he could must drive him crazy. The fact that he doesn’t makes you admire him more.

He walks into the room with slightly less grace than usual. He’s hiding his sleep deprivation well. You can see it, though, in the way he’s just a little too controlled with his movements, just a bit too loud with his footsteps, just a tad too slow with his reactions. And the way he doesn’t quite notice you until you shift and bump against his equipment, making him whip his head round and fix you with a stare through his lenses.

Then his face twists, in the way you’re far too familiar with. And this demolishes the walls you were trying to build, and then you’re crying together in the middle of the room.

As he shudders softly against you, you think about how hard this must be for him. He wants to show you he’s strong, to “show you a proper time” before the end, to prove to everyone that he will be strong and brave for them, that by _sheer force of will alone he will fucking drag everyone through this_. Everyone. He doesn’t want them to see him afraid, because they need him to be strong, so they can remember him that way.

His problem is that he cares too fucking much. He cares too much to hurt these people, so he puts on the insufferable prick and coolkid façade, to keep some kind of distance (although you suspect he knows it’s not really much distance at all), so he can do what he has to do. Grief and terror and pain are not for coolkids. Objectivity is for coolkids. Keeping your eyes on the fucking prize, because losing is so much worse.

You know he’s going to hate himself once he’s finished crying. Maybe he’ll start early. And then he’ll tear himself away, upset that he spent twenty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds with you crying instead of letting you know, as best he can, how much he needs you.

So you ask him a question. “dAVE,,, i CAN HELP YOU SLEEP, iF YOU WANT,”

Here he goes. You can see him thinking: don’tneedpityno – needsleepneedhimneedclosenesswarmth – selfishselfishgodwhat’swrongwithyou. You put your hands on his face. He’s so young, you think. We’re all so young. “dAVE, yOU KNOW YOU SHOULD.”

Nonohe’ssofuckingkind – don’tdeserveitshouldn’tdoit – fuckingwhyjesuswhymewhyuswhy –

You’re close enough to see his eyes through his shades. He closes them and says, “Yes.”

And then you sort of, reach over as Dave stiffens, and you find the roiling tangle that is Dave’s mind, dark purples and blacks with sharp bright red lancing through, sharp-angled and shouting of pain. You smooth it, soften it, ease the angles and cool the colors, not changing anything, just soothing it, drawing a warm blanket of gray over everything, and when you come back to yourself Dave’s slumped against you, breathing softly and deeply, face relaxed for what you’re afraid will be the last time.

You sometimes wish you could use your psychic powers on yourself. As it is, you carry him (definitely lighter he hasn’t been eating) back to his respiteblock, take off his shoes and shirt (you found out how he usually sleeps), and then curl up around his body. With a little difficulty, you lay your ear to his chest. His heart keeps perfect time.

Once, while he was curled around you like you’re curled around him, he told you that he’d know the beat of your heart anywhere. You try to learn the same thing now, while he’s at peace, before it’s gone.

\-----

While Dave sleeps – he’ll be out for at least six hours; you made sure – you wander the hallways. You avoid the high traffic areas because you don’t want to meet anyone, but perversely when you see someone else wandering too, you almost can’t bear to let them go. You tell anybody looking for Dave that he’s asleep. They don’t ask any questions. You watch their lonely figures shrink away down the hall, until they turn a corner or enter a room, and then you’re alone again.

Hours into your wandering, you accidentally come upon John and Karkat, and hastily retreat around the corner before they notice you. John is in Karkat’s lap, and they’re kissing slowly and sweetly, both ignoring the tears streaming down their faces. Karkat’s hand is tangled in John’s hair and John’s arms are wrapped around Karkat’s shoulders and the flood of emotion that swamps you and rises in your throat lets you know you have to go back to Dave.

 _I’ll always come back to Dave_ , you think nonsensically, the hallways blurring. _He’s the only place there is._ And while the logical part of your mind says that it doesn’t make sense, the rest of you knows it’s right. There’s you, and wherever you go you’ll find him, in the curve of a wall or the sound of your footsteps or the scent of cool metal. He’s everywhere because he’s inside you, in the way the once-broken parts of your mind are healing, and you know it’s the same for him, because –

 _Because it’s fate_ , you think as you pause in the doorway, watching him breathe slowly, curled around himself, one arm thrown over the side of his bed. You sit on the floor, gazing at his face. He may not be his coolest right now, drooling a bit onto his pillow and snoring lightly, but you don’t care. What you feel for Dave Strider is the most intense pity you can imagine, and the all-encompassing emotion of this matespritship would have been destined to go down in history – if there had been anyone left to record it. Or care.

You cradle his hand gently. His skin is always so cool, nothing like the heat from your skin from your blood pumping through your veins many times faster than his. You never told him how lowbloods burn through their lives so much faster than highbloods. The first time you touched him you couldn’t help but assign him a color even though you know humans all have the same color blood, and it used to depress you that he would live at least a decade longer than you. You lay fingers on his pulse, feeling it beat slowly. You suppose that it doesn’t matter much now.

Unless you and Dave both live. What kind of life would that be? In the small possibility that you defeat Lord English – and then the both of you live, because what would even be the point if Dave died – what would happen? Would you be stuck in the Veil forever, drifting on this godforsaken asteroid until you grow to hate each other? If there’s a hard reset, would you remember Dave? Would he remember you? Would you even still exist? Would a universe without Dave be a universe worth living in? When you get really morbid, you think you’d prefer death to this uncertainty.

You carefully remove Dave’s shades and put them on the cinderblock closest to his bed. He’s got a little furrow between his brows, making him look determined in his sleep. If he was awake, he’d smooth it out, keep the bland poker face intact. You brush your lips against it. He takes a deep breath, rolls over and shoves the covers away, exposing pale shoulder blades like knives. You touch those with a fingertip, and then down the curve of his spine. You can feel the individual bones, hard and bumpy under the smooth skin, sometimes marred by a scar. The twin muscles on either side flex and shift as he wriggles away from your _ticklish_ finger, and you relent. He’s beautiful. You want to see his face again, so you very carefully ease yourself onto the bed. Naturally Dave wakes up.

He turns to you, blinking, and you get flushed for his eyes all over again. “Hey, Tavros. You put me to sleep.” And he actually smiles a bit, corners of his mouth turning up, eyelids half lowered over those red irises, and you don’t want him to remember what’s going on, so you just smile back. Apparently that was the wrong move – was your smile too fragile? Too strained? – and his smile fades, the familiar strain making itself at home again on his face.

He looks around for his shades and slides them on, before he sits up and pulls a clean shirt out of his sylladex. _I’m going to lose all these familiar things_ , you think, and the ache in your heart reasserts itself. He spends a moment looking at his shirt, then looks at you. “I think I’m gonna go out in something a little classier, because why the fuck not.” When he says go out, you don’t think he means out to eat breakfast or lunch or whatever meal is appropriate for the time.

You look down at the broken record decal. “tROLLS THINK FASHION IS, uH, sTUPID,” You hide the sniffle and discreetly wipe your nose.

“Sometimes. I’ll do it later.” He pulls it over his head, and you marvel once again that he can do it without shifting his shades.

“dAVE, wHAT WILL HAPPEN, iF WE WIN?”

He snorts, a bitter sound. “I wouldn’t worry about that.” And then his thoughts catch up with his mouth, and he saves it by saying, “It’s when, not if, and _when_ we kick his sorry ass the next step, whatever it is, will be easier than taking down a time traveling demon.” He looks somewhere off your right shoulder when he says it, and you know he’s lying. It’s because he doesn’t want to say, or can’t say, what he’s thinking, and so you say what you’re sure has been on both of your minds.

“dAVE, wHAT IF WE DON'T,,, wHAT IF WE'RE IN SEPARATE UNIVERSES AGAIN, oR, uH, oNE OF US,,, dIDN'T MAKE IT IN, oR WHAT, wHAT IF –“

“Tavros, I’m tripping over all these what if’s, and –“ he grabs your hand and pulls you close, shoving his shades up with the other hand, and you recognize the Strider signal for ‘shit’s about to get sincere all up in here.’ “I will fucking find you. Do you hear me?” You nod, trying not to let the sudden burst of hope drown in the despair. “I. Will. Fucking. Find you. Even if I die in the process because fuck – fuck living in a universe like that. I will go through the fucking Green Sun to find you. Do you believe me?”

He’s visibly upset and determined, the waver in his voice counteracted by gritted teeth and blazing eyes, and the _love_ \- yes, that’s what you should call it – makes you swallow the lead weight in your throat and say yes, ignoring the whispering voice in your head saying _you’ll never see him again_.


	17. Chapter 17

Dave very cautiously finishes helping you oil Jolly Roger’s joints; in a fit of jealousy, Jolly Roger has decided to ignore him. Jolly Roger doesn’t really need the maintenance – and you don’t really know how anyways – but it’s something to do. You refuel him, and with a pat on his smoking muzzle, captchalogue him again.

Dave’s got oil smeared on his face and his hands, and you wipe his cheek with a thumb. He holds your hand there, and leans in to kiss you. It’s chaste and only lasts a second – any longer and you’re both at risk for crying again, and you don’t want that to be your last memory of your time together.

He cleans up and changes into his black suit, which you think makes him look businesslike ~~and sexy~~. You watch as he tightens the white tie slowly, and you wish he didn’t look quite so grim. iShades in place, he turns to you and holds out his hand, and hand in hand you walk out of Dave Strider’s room for the last time.

The hallways are as silent as ever. You two are like forgotten ghosts in a forgotten haunted house. Anybody who knows you still exist will soon cease existing right alongside you.

In the expanse of the designated departure room, everybody is standing small and huddled in the center. There’s a large monitor. On it you see an image of a floating cue ball tower in a mist of green; the image flickers and frizzes with static. Dave squeezes your hand; you’re not sure whether he’s trying to reassure you or himself.

“I Believe That Is In The Heart Of The Green Sun. Do You Agree, Jade?” Kanaya is softly glowing by Rose, who’s wearing an outfit obviously of Kanaya’s creation, and who obviously knitted the blouse Kanaya is wearing.

“Yeah, that’s the Green Sun, all right.” Jade’s in her Iron Lass robot suit and you momentarily feel bad that you’ve apparently failed at being really ‘Terminator,’ whatever that means. To compensate, you let go of Dave, withdraw Jolly Roger and swing smoothly into place atop him. Everyone suddenly looks so small, and when you look at the flickering monitor dominated by green, you can’t help but feel too small for the task as well.

Sollux moves to the front and turns to face everyone. “s0 we’re g0nna use Sgrub’s telep0rtati0n system, since this is in the middle 0f h0rr0rterr0r c0untry and that’s the m0st direct r0ute. we may n0t arrive precisely there unless we’ve g0t c00rdinati0n with the space and time players. can y0u guys make sure we get there at this p0int and at that time?” He points it out. They nod.

Karkat takes over, shoving Sollux aside with more grace than usual. “WE MAY NOT ALL ARRIVE AT THE RIGHT TIME AND PLACE, BUT DON’T FUCKING PANIC, BECAUSE WE’RE COLLECT EVERYBODY ON THE LOWEST REMAINING FLOOR OF THAT STRUCTURE AND THEN WE’RE GONNA FUCK LORD ENGLISH’S SHIT UP.” He glares at everyone on the last phrase, as if the more venomously he says it the more likely it’s going to happen, and nobody wants to correct him. He deflates slightly; you think he was hoping for one last blistering argument to delay the inevitable.

John gently takes his hand and looks around. “Don’t worry guys. We’ll make it through this. Together. We won’t leave anyone behind.” His smile is only slightly dimmed. Rose takes John’s other hand, and Karkat takes Sollux’s, and then everyone is gripping each other’s hands tightly. You look down at Dave on one side and Jade on the other, and then at the rest; they’re standing so small and young and brave, the tear tracks wiped away and breathing calm and subdued, and you never want to see them die.

In the last moment, you look at Dave, but he’s got his eyes closed and teeth gritted, and you press his hand before Sollux presses the button and you’re all squeezed into a screaming tunnel of white that flays the flesh from your bones and seems to last an eternity or two.  
\-----  
The first thing you notice is that there’s only the three of you and that this doesn’t look quite like where you’re supposed to be. The second thing you notice is the ominous ticking of a grandfather clock that sounds like it’s going just the slightest bit too slow. The third thing you notice is the broken figure of something you thought was simply a legend lying on the floor.

Dave whispers, “Shit, we’re too early, they got torn away Jade –“

“Even with Kanaya I couldn’t – even with Sburb. What’s that –“

“oH MY GOD, yOU GUYS, sHUT _UP_ -“ And you very slowly grab their hands tighter and nudge Jolly Roger backwards with your knees, back towards the exit you’re sure has to be there, and seeing the look on your face they move back with you.

Jade whispers, “What is that, Tavros?”

You shake your head slowly. “hE,,, mADE SURE NOBODY COULD HELP ME, wHEN I GOT CRIPPLED, i THOUGHT MAYBE THEY WERE HALLUCINATING,,, tHEY SAY A GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE THAT, hAS BEEN BEHIND EVERY MAJOR EVENT IN ALTERNIAN HISTORY, aND, uM, wORSE THINGS,,,” You look around, and spot a curiously shaped archway much too far away. You point it out and start moving towards it anyway, when –

The clock stops ticking, replaced with a roaring sound, and the puppet suddenly starts - _what the flying fuck_ , and you can’t move for the life of you as disgusting veined limbs erupt _out_ of the puppet’s limbs, and they look wet and slimy like not quite hatched grubs and they grow like Alternian fungi on corpses. A leg is missing, and blood spurts out before being cut off like a fist closing around a neck when a stump appears. Your eyes are fixed on the thing in horror as it grows, splitting the ~~rather tacky~~ shirt, and when claws erupt from the formerly innocent-looking hands and shoes, you finally tear your gaze away. Jade’s hands on her rifle are shaking as tears streak down her cheeks. Dave’s standing loose-limbed, and with a trembling hand touches his forehead, chest, right shoulder then left shoulder. You don’t know what it means, but you copy him on the off chance it’ll work. You don’t think it does.

And then a glittery peg leg appears, and a Technicolor coat, and the cue ball darkens and fine red lines that veer on the edge of invisibility hover and twitch spastically on its surface and then –

Wow, you didn’t think that thing could get any uglier, and then it showed its face. You can hear Dave’s voice, the hysteria lurking just under the surface: “Oh god, it’s as if Lil Cal hulked out and ate universes –“ and then you realize this is Lord English and there’s only the three of you here, small and fragile –

And the coat is simultaneously a coat and a sarcophagus, and the honk he releases makes you certain that there is no good in the universe, that love and happiness and peace are but illusions to make the tragedy more pathetic, and that your feeble strivings are nothing against the pitiless cruelty of the universe –

And then Jade shoots him, and the spell is broken. It didn’t do anything much, a small burst that left red pockmarks in Lord English’s gnarled skin, but you find you can move. And to your astonishment, you do not move towards the exit like any sane person, but straight at Lord English, the deadly point of your lance aimed at approximately where his heart is (on Jolly Roger, only about a foot above your head).

He knocks you aside like a toy. The brunt of his blow hits Jolly Roger, and you fly off him and get acquainted with the ground. Through the ringing in your head and the sudden complaining from multiple areas of your body, you notice that Jolly Roger’s been folded neatly in half and tossed right through a wall, a faint trail of smoke still rising from his nostrils. Your heart breaks and then shatters when Lord English utters a laugh that makes you realize that everything you ever did and everything you ever valued was meaningless.

  
  
**HAR. HAR. HAR.**  
---  
  
And of course Dave’s there, four or five different Daves, and all of them are avoiding all the bullets Jade’s firing at Lord English, but Lord English makes a lazy motion in the air and from your dizzy vantage point on the ground, you can see how his claws slashed through a Dave’s ribcage, shattering bone and slicing through flesh like it was paper, and the bright explosion of red and then things that really should be on the inside wipes thought from your think pan as you watch him fall to the floor, barely in one piece, held together by the suddenly revealed and fragile looking spine. And then another falls, a leg torn off in a parody of cue ball guy’s position, only he’s still alive and sobbing between the moans as his blood spurts from the twisted remains of his leg, suddenly cut off as Lord English nonchalantly steps on him. You think the cracking of bones is the loudest thing in the room, and the oozing of red blood between his toes – you realize you’re screaming, and you stumble upright, looking for Alpha Dave –

  
  
**YOU’RE IN THE WRONG TIMELINE, LITTLE ONES.**  
---  
  
And another Dave is impaled on a claw and held up to Lord English’s face, the flickering cue ball eyes focused on his face and the rictus of pain there, screams held back behind gritted teeth –

Strong arms pin you before you’ve taken more than three steps towards Lord English, halberd in hand, and you almost crush his foot and break his nose before you realize it’s Alpha Dave, hissing in your ear, “Don’t you fucking dare go, you idiot, look where it got them –“ You’re torn between succumbing to the bloodlust and wrapping your arms around Dave and sobbing, but Jade snatches your halberd and takes over restraining you as Alpha Dave - _what the fuck does he think he’s doing_ -

He’s walking as coolly as he can towards Lord English, who, losing interest in the Dave on his claw, tosses him aside (where he crashes against a table and slides to the floor, neck at an unnatural angle) and turns to look Dave over with those eyes, and if you could give a skull emotions you’d say he looks amused.

“What do you mean, wrong timeline?”

Oh god. When Lord English smiles you think you’d rather be condemned to the horrorterrors for eternity.

  
  
**THIS ISN’T HOW IT GOES. HA HA. HOO HOO.**  
---  
  
Dave shudders very slowly, and you buck against Jade, trying to get her off so you can _help_ , but in her Iron Lass suit there is just no way you are going to get free. She clamps a hand over your mouth too, so you two can hear Dave –

“This is the alpha timeline. There aren’t – weren’t any other viable ones.”

  
  
**YOU AMUSE ME. TIME PLAYERS ALWAYS DO. HASN’T MY MAN RECRUITED YOU YET? YOU’RE JUST HIS AGE.**  
---  
  
He looms over Dave, who takes an involuntary step back, and then another, and you will not take this anymore! Fortunately Jade feels the same way and she unleashes a burst of radioactive bullets as you run towards Dave, but it’s odd, because the faintly glowing bullets appear to be slowing and shrinking –

And then they burst through Dave, and you can see each individual jerk of his body as a bullet hits him, and your screaming is matched by Lord English’s laughter –

And too late, too late, everyone else shows up, and to their credit they only pause a second to take in the carnage before Karkat and John lead them into battle. You cry for help, but you don’t blame them for ignoring you, it’s to be expected, because there’s no time for helping the fallen; Kanaya, however, grabs Jade’s arm as she heads towards you two and yells something in her ear before revving her chainsaw and rejoining the others. Lord English just keeps laughing as they attack him, not even bothering to defend himself, and you’re cradling Dave in your arms ( _again, again_ ) but you don’t know if he can see you, he’s too pale and there’s too much blood and you’re so afraid of his shaking and twitching that you can’t think.

Jade yanks you up. “Shut up, get Dave and follow me, there’s something they found-” and she’s already running out that exit you spotted eons ago, and ignoring Dave’s near-wail of pain as you pick him up fireman style, you run after her. You can still hear _him_ , voice like death drowning out your friends’ cries.

  
  
**I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT, KIDDIES, BUT I WILL BE BACK FOR YOU, HA HA HA **  
---  
  
You race through green hallways to a door with far too many locks standing open. As you skid into the room, you see Jade climbing through a hole in a giant window to what looks like a study, only all in blue, with a similar wall standing there, unbroken, and you climb in after, careful not to hit Dave’s limp body on the sharp glass.

She’s got her brows furrowed in concentration as her fingers dance over the pane, and you put Dave down and lift his lolling head, trying to ignore the yawning pit inside you – he’s not gonna last much longer, dear gods, his breathing is wet and raw and there’s more blood on you than inside him, it seems –

“Stand back,” Jade says, and shoots a hole through the second window. A light that’s brighter than white fills the window, blasting outwards at you, and you squint and stumble upright, bringing Dave with you, afraid of his weak moan and for the friends you’re betraying –

“Get through there!” Jade screams, and you want to do it so badly but –

“wHAT IS IT!”

“It’s another universe, I think! I’ll get the others, just get him in before he fucking dies, okay?!” Jade’s crying, and so are you, but you can’t let Dave die and you can’t leave your friends – Dave closes his eyes, and the hand that was clenched in your shirt loosens -

“dO YOU PROMISE, tO GET THEM THROUGH -”

“Yes, fuck yes, just go, he’s dying –“

And you jump through the window as Dave shudders through his last breath, and everything is white, white, and you try to hang on to Dave but you’re dissolving, the searing white light cutting you to ever smaller bits, and what’s left of your mind tries to reach him –

Because you didn’t get to tell him

that

you

won’t

 

forget


	18. Chapter 18

Your name is Dave Strider. Today you turn twenty-six years old, but nobody knows that except for you and the orphanage where you grew up. It’s several levels of ironic to be trawling xeno bars and clubs in Castro District in San Francisco for up-and-coming talent instead of ‘celebrating.’ Normally you would pick someone up too for maximum irony points (it’s ironic to think as if you’re playing a video game) but tonight there’s a restlessness in your system that manifests as increasing irritation with this shit DJ.

And the go-go dancers. Just, no. Those are the shittiest cowboy hats you’ve ever seen. And you’re from Texas. And you’ve spent eight years in L.A. Who had the bright idea to put cowboy hats on trolls? It’s just a hideous image and maybe that’s what’s putting you off your game.

Also _this piece of shit DJ_. You weave through the drunk crowd, deftly avoiding getting bumped and ground, to rifle through his records. What kind of asshole only brings human music to a xeno bar gig?

“Hey man, that’s personal property, don’t fucking touch –“ You keep rifling through his records, while sparing a glance up. He’s desperately trying to look gangster, sagging jeans and oversize shirt, and you realize you must look like a rich douchebag, hand-tailored Italian suit and aviators in the middle of the night. That means your tailors are doing a good job, because you are a rich douchebag. And he recognizes you and changes his tune. “Shit, aren’t you Dave Strider – you own Broken Records, I love all your shit –“

“You’re the worst DJ I’ve ever heard. I once let a butter-fingered troll touch my turntables because he wanted to, quote, ‘sPIN SOME PHAT BEATS,’ and you’re worse than he was. You’re lucky everyone here is too drunk to notice.” At the very bottom you find something that’s either his guilty pleasure or fate: the ‘Peter Pan’ soundtrack. You realize that maybe you could spin some phat beats and get rid of this restlessness. Tonight’s the night that Tavros Nitram shoved you through a window from another universe and saved your life, and though you doubt he remembers, you do.

You brush the spluttering DJ aside, cast a disdainful look at his equipment, and take out your own headphones. “Listen closely,” you tell him. “This is how you do it.” And you do it, Peter Pan and Alternian rap, taken from your personal collection in your sylladex. You hardly notice the puzzled cheers from the mixed crowd, because you’re playing the beat of Tavros’ heart again, like so many times before, and you feel better already, and it’s easy to let your mind wander with and through the music.

Nobody remembers except for you. And Karkat. Seems to be something to do with being the Knight. And together you’ve made it your project to find your session players, but it’s hard, what with you trying to put the NYSE on total fiduciary lockdown and Karkat researching life extension for warmbloods – the new politically correct term – on your money, the thieving asshole. Futhermore, they ended up places you’d never expect, so you’ve only found six others so far. You found John in a French patisserie three blocks from the Eiffel Tower, and it took an entire week of pestering to get John to even acknowledge that yes, he did have some memories that were a little odd but _vous êtes ridicule, Monsieur Strider_! So you tossed Karkat at him (and you weren’t the slightest bit hurt that it took this short angry troll to remind him that you were his best bro) so now John runs a French patisserie in Stanford where Karkat does research. Jade’s right across the bay at UC Berkeley, and won a Nobel for physics for her research into the quantum multiverse theory (which you gave her the inspiration for, thanks very much). Rose is a psychologist to the stars and Kanaya is a famous fashion designer; they live together in New York, and –

“uM, aRE YOU PLAYING, pETER PAN, aND ALTERNIAN RAP, tOGETHER?”

And your hands stop the music of their own accord and it lets you notice that they’re suddenly shaking, and the act of raising your head takes more courage than anything else you’ve done – even running away to the circus at age ten – because if this is yet another false alarm the only thing you’re doing tonight is going back to the Fairmont and getting _absolutely smashed_ -

And all that takes less than half a second and then you’re staring at Tavros, and you wish you hadn’t hesitated that half a second because you don’t want to look anywhere else anymore ~~keep cool Strider~~. He’s built and fucking taller than you now, and his horns are just an even more ridiculous size, and he’s got a backpack slung over one shoulder and a Cal university sweatshirt and faded blue jeans and you’ve never _wanted_ so fast or so much before ~~god keep it together Dave~~ , and he blushes as you stare at him, mortified that he made the music stop and now people are quizzically grumbling, and the blush is exactly the same and so is the embarrassment in his voice.

“oH GOD, i'M SORRY, fOR INTERRUPTING, pLEASE KEEP GOING, i WAS, uH,,, uM,” Halfway through his stumbling apology he stops, and he stares back at you and there’s that furrow of his brows and the rapid fisting of his hands that means he’s confused, and then he says, “dO I KNOW YOU?”

You snap out of it ~~jesus fuck what took you so long~~. You drag the spluttering DJ back, tell him he can keep your record and headphones and vault over the turntables. (He’s going to gossip about Dave Strider leaving a xeno bar with a young delicious troll college student; you better call your PR girl. In the morning.) Tavros takes a step back but you grab his elbow as the music starts back up and ~~your knees go weak~~ you pull him out the back door to the dark alley behind it, and he comes with you, tripping over the door sill and you notice that he’s got a prosthetic leg, slim and metallic in the yellow light of the streetlamp ~~are you waxing poetic about a _prosthetic_ fuck you’ve got it bad~~. He pulls his arm away ~~nope your heart doesn’t break even a little bit~~ and stares at you with big brown eyes (the irises hadn’t filled in yet, the last time you saw him) and he almost moans, hands to his temples.

“wHAT DID YOU DO, i'M REMEMBERING THINGS,” You know how this goes, you’ve seen it happen, and sometimes it goes slower than others (Rose was the absolute worst, it took months), and you’ve just got to not scare him off by being a creeper and making out with him right this instant, although you _really_ would like to. But this is Tavros, and you don’t want to botch this job like Karkat did with Eridan (not that you blame him, anyone would’ve tossed him into the tank at Seaworld – you remember what he did to Tavros) so you settle for asking him, “Tavros, what do you remember?”

He gives you an agonized look. “yOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW MY NAME, i'VE NEVER MET YOU BEFORE, bUT I REMEMBER YOU, fROM,,,”

It’s so hard not to touch him right now, and it’s so hard to hear him say that he remembers you ~~you were so afraid that he wouldn’t~~ but you tell him, “You’re not going crazy.” And you wish you could say more, but your much-vaunted verbal skills are somehow failing you right now, and you think it must be just Tavros and that expression on his face that are wiping the words from your mind. You tell yourself it’s better for him to get all the words out first anyways.

“i - WE - LIVED ON A DIFFERENT PLANET, iN A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE, aND I PLAYED A GAME THAT MADE ME CRIPPLED, bUT THAT WASN'T _THE GAME_ ; THE GAME, oH MY GOD, tHE GAME KILLED EVERYONE AND DESTROYED OUR UNIVERSE, bUT, tHIS DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE, iT MADE YOURS, aND THEN YOU, i MET YOU, aND,” He’s looking at you in that so-familiar and yet so foreign way and god you’ve missed him so much, but no, not yet, not yet, you have to wait until he remembers, and your poker face is strained for the first time in so, so long.

“dAVE,” He says it half like a question and half like a wondering statement, and yup, there goes your poker face because now he’s looking at you the way he did when he kissed you for the first time and the way you saw him looking at you when you woke up in his arms, and you are not going to flip the fuck out.

“ _Fuck_.” You look away and wrestle the poker face back in place, and when you look back he throws his arms around you.

“dAVE, iT IS YOU, oH MY GOD, dAVE I’VE MISSED YOU, i CAN’T BELIEVE IT,” He’s so warm, and he’s choking up and sniffling, and this is going to turn into a train wreck if you don’t do something, so you let yourself touch him, pull his face to yours and kiss that boy.

It’s better than you remembered. He tastes like cinnamon and chocolate and something deliciously alien that no one else you’ve ever fucked tasted like, and you conclude that must be just Tavros. When you lick his bottom lip he gives a breathy moan and his knees literally tremble, and you’re suddenly aware that you’re really turned on, and when you do a little experimental grind you find that he is too. He flushes, still kissing you enthusiastically, eyes closed, and in a distant corner of your mind you note the irony of kissing with your eyes open, but most of your mind is thinking, “sex in an alley, though ironic, is not a good idea,” so obviously you should whisper, a bit huskier than you meant to, “My place or yours?”

He breaks off to consider (he looks the exact same way all the times you said this to him in the Veil, although after the third time you just asked it to see his face; his recuperacoon had gone sadly unused for at least a week) and you take the opportunity to wrap a hand in his hair, pull his throat back and lick it. He purrs, and it’s absolutely intoxicating, and you let your eyes slip half closed, and he better make a fucking decision soon because your exquisitely tailored slacks are getting rather tight.

“mY ROOMMATE DOESN’T KNOW I’M, uH, xENO,”

“Excellent. My place has room service.”

You tell the taxi driver there’s fifty dollars in it if he’ll get you to the Fairmont in under ten minutes, so for eight minutes and forty-three seconds you have Tavros on your lap, gasping and shuddering under your hands and lips. He’s so warm, and when you press your chilled fingers against his ribs he shivers against you. You cant your hips up just a bit to watch his face as he realizes how hard you are, and then you wipe that look off his face with a hard kiss.

He gapes at the ostentatious marble and gold of the lobby, and you give him a better taste of it in the elevator when you shove him up against the gilt and the cold stone. He’s gorgeous like this, smoky gray skin and bright orange horns against the tackiness, and you rub the soft taut skin just under and around the base of his horn, and he melts against you.

He laughs when you shove the room key in wrong and curse, and when you finally get the fucking thing open he pushes you to the floor and kicks the door shut behind you. You can’t see him in the darkness, but it doesn’t matter because you can feel his fingers clumsily opening your jacket-tie-shirt and while he’s struggling with your buttons you drag his sweatshirt up and over his head, not even getting them caught on his horns because you are the smoothest motherfucker who ever reset the fucking universe and you’re not gonna let clothes get in the way of ~~making love~~ hot sex with your ~~lover~~ um, fuck, you guess lover will have to do?

Only his warm hands have stopped with the stripping and are doing something else now, tracing lines on your skin? You sit up on your elbows and look at him, and his gleaming yellow eyes are focused on your torso.

“What the fuck, Tavros, I know I’m a work of art, shit’s Mona Lisa in here, but I would like less visual appreciation and more tactile appreciation, so if we could get back to that?” Fuck it’s dark in here, but you can see his eyes dart up and back down.

“yOUR SCARS, uM, aRE ALL IN DIFFERENT PLACES, aND THERE'S LESS OF THEM,” You can’t see but you’re absolutely certain he’s blushing again, and something warm and tight rises in your chest and sticks in your throat –

“I love you.” And your throat closes up again, and you can’t say anything else, Dave Strider with his much-vaunted verbal sparring skills struck speechless by this troll, this impossibly lovely troll whom you’ve missed for so long –

He kisses your hand, the – fucking romantic bastard. And leans up over you, a shadow with lantern-bright eyes, and slowly puts a hesitant hand on your shades. And of course you let him take them off. You don’t lift a hand to stop him. He puts them aside gently, and turns back to you.

“yOUR EYES,,, tHEY'RE, pRETTIER, tHAN I REMEMBERED,” You close them, and he brushes his lips across each eyelid, before picking you up (are you serious this is so uncool it’s not even ironic but you don’t give a shit) and carrying you to the bed in the next room.

As he steps into the bedroom you snark, “What am I, a blushing bride? Is this how we’re starting our lives of domestic bliss? We gonna pop out 2.1 babies and live in a white house with a picket fence and a dog named Rover?”

“wOULD YOU LIKE TO?” Well, fuck. He’s got you there. You glare at him, and now that your shades are off, you can see the smile that spreads across his face, razor teeth flashing in the light from the streetlamps, brown eyes soft.

You tell him, “Asshole,” but you let him take charge.

When he slides onto you, you make an embarrassing sound and immediately bite your lip. He’s soft and tight and you can feel him clenching around you, and you dig your fingers into his thighs as he leans down and looks at you. You gasp as he raises himself, and exhale hard when he slides back down, and it feels too goddamn good, the way you’re filling him and how wet he is all around you –

He brushes fingers over your lips, and you open eyes you hadn’t realized you’d closed. “i DON'T THINK YOU HAVE TO, uM, kEEP QUIET,,, iF YOU DON’T WANT TO,” His warm fingers are still hovering there, and you lift your head to steal one between your lips. He moans and watches as you lick it, and when you suck his finger into your mouth he shudders and slams down on you again. Your mouth is open around his finger and you make a shocked sort of groan that surprises you and makes his eyes go wide.

“yEAH, lIKE THAT,” You hum in acknowledgment, and snatch another one to lap at. Every time he sinks onto you, his eyelids flutter, and those long sooty lashes do terrible things to your heart. You run your hands up and down his chest, pulling him closer, touching his grub weals, making him moan (maybe you’re doing some moaning too). He slips his fingers out of your mouth, needing both hands to support himself over you, and you arch upwards into him, needing more of that velvet friction, gasping although he isn’t keeping your mouth open anymore. There’s a haze blurring your mind, and you can’t really concentrate on anything but fleeting images and sensations, like the smooth-hard surface of his horn and how he leans into your stroking –

And the way he watches your face, and the prickling sensation of knowing that every slip in your poker face will never be forgotten, and letting your poker face slip anyways –

And how his bone bulge wraps around your fingers when you reach down, soft and wet and pushing against you, eager for pressure –

And Tavros’ face when he crushes his mouth to yours and begs you, “pLEASE, cOME, pLEASE PLEASE, oH GOD, dAVE” –

And “Not yet,” you gasp out, because you’ve got to wait for Tavros, you won’t – leave him behind –

And you feel him convulse around you, swamping you, and you shatter.


	19. Chapter 19

You don’t smoke after mindblowing sex. Yes, it’s a classic image, still pretty fucking cool, but lung cancer isn’t cool, and besides, you don’t want to die before you have to. ~~Your mild asthma flares up whenever you try it.~~

So you just shove Tavros’ boneless body off you before he crushes you, the fat ass, and toss an arm over him. You think this is a good time to fall asleep. You don’t get very far in your attempt to sleep, though, because shit is getting downright nasty here. “Hey. Hey Tavros. Tavros, you made a mess, and now it’s messy in here, and I can’t sleep. How inconsiderate.”

He’s facedown in the pillows, but he quirks an ear at you. “fUCK YOU DAVE, tHIS IS AS MUCH YOUR FAULT, aS IT IS MINE,”

“God, I thought everyone who goes through Castro District at that hour brings buckets.”

“fOR YOUR INFORMATION, i WAS VISITING A FRIEND, aND MISSED THE BUS, aND GOT LOST ON MY WAY TO THE TRAIN STATION, aND, uH, yOU WERE THERE TOO, wHY DIDN’T YOU HAVE ONE,”

“I’m not the one who makes huge messes.”

He laboriously pulls his arm out from under him to flip you off. You grope around in the dark until you find his ass, and then slap it. “Can we at least move or something, the cleaning staff are gonna be angry enough as it is without two douchebags interfering with their grim duty of clearing this disaster zone.” To do your part to help keep the environment clean, you wipe most of the mess off yourself with clean areas of the sheets, which are really very nice and you hate to stain them, but at least now you know you’re getting your money’s worth. You are going to have to tip extra. Tavros joins in, and you stumble out to the couch together, where he does this thing called spooning that you usually hate, but oddly enough, you enjoy it. Maybe it’s cause Tavros is like a giant heater with benefits, or maybe you just like how the three or four extra inches he has on you gives you a nice hollow under his chin to rest in. ~~Or maybe you just can’t bear the boy being away from you.~~

“dAVE,”

“Mmph.”

“i’M HUNGRY,”

“Bluh.” You reach up and feel around the side table for the phone. “Room 1025. Want pizza.” You look at Tavros. He’s blinking his lantern eyes at you, white teeth peeking out as he smiles. More adorable than a baby sloth yawning. You put your hand over the mouthpiece. “What kind you want?”

“cHEESE?”

“Fucking boring.” You take your hand away. “Cheese. Bring plenty of those pepper flake things.” You toss the phone back onto the table and fall off the couch reaching for your shades.

“dAVE, aRE YOU OKAY?” He spoils the concerned tone with a low chuckle that’s huskier than it used to be and makes your heart do little flips.

“Yes. I love faceplanting in the carpet. Anyways, one of us better be dressed to get the pizza, and since the sight of my unbearably handsome body causes aneurysms in the unprepared, I will sacrifice my nudity to the pizza gods.” Shades – check. Clothes are scattered across the floor, and when you hold your shirt up you find Tavros was not as careful with his claws as you would’ve liked. It’s not as if you don’t have a dozen more like it ~~but old habits die hard~~ so you just fold it and gather up the others for unceremonious tossing inside the bedroom and retrieval of a ridiculous looking bathrobe. You spend several seconds contemplating the horror of actually wearing one of these, but when the knock comes at the door you shrug into it anyways. Starvation trumps fashion sense.

The hotel employee manages not to raise eyebrows at your shades at three in the morning, and you tip him well – he looks tired, ~~and every little bit helps, you know it very well~~ and catering to rich douchebags probably doesn’t pay very well on its own.

Tavros inhales three slices of pizza before you’ve finished one. He always ate more and faster than you in the Veil too. He explained it to you as something to do with faster metabolism and you didn’t really pay much attention at the time. You know plenty about it now, thanks to Karkat. He doesn’t _look_ much older, but you could always blackmail Karkat to get him on those experimental meds –

“dAVE?”

“Yeah.”

“dID YOU, uM, tHAT IS, hAVE YOU, uH, fOUND,,, aNYONE ELSE?”

God you’re an idiot, of course he’d want to know about his friends. At least Karkat had the decency to keep it in his pants until after all the drama. Granted, you were also there glaring at him from behind your sunglasses, but he cared enough to tell John everything first. Goddammit. “Yeah. Me and Karkat have found six others. John and Karkat are in Stanford. Rose and Kanaya are in New York. Eridan’s in San Diego. Jade’s at Berkeley –“

“wHAT, nO WAY, i'M A NEW GRAD STUDENT THERE, i'M STUDYING, uM, cOMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND, uH, xENOBIOLOGICAL RELATIONS,” He’s so excited he’s stopped wolfing down his two-thirds of the pizza and instead is almost literally bouncing in his seat, and he grabs your hand, giant smile engulfing his face. “cAN WE GO SEE HER, aND UM, jOHN AND KARKAT TOO, sINCE THEY’RE NEARBY?”

 ~~No you are not okay with this~~ You can’t blame him for wanting to see his friends, but ~~I want him to myself~~ he can surely wait a bit, right? ~~God you’re selfish~~ “Doing anything else this weekend?” He shakes his head. “How about next week?”

“nOT, rEALLY,”

“Then how about,” and you rub your thumb along the rough, slightly tougher skin of his knuckles, “you spend this weekend with me, and next week we go visiting the fambly?”

“oKAY,” When Tavros smiles at you it’s like standing in a pool of sunlight, everything else fading away. Obviously in this universe he never found a reason to keep his emotions hidden either ~~you’re glad, you really are~~ and it’s pure unadulterated joy that’s burrowing into your eye sockets and heading for your heart.

“So. Grad student. Berkeley.”

And there you go, you have started the avalanche, and he tells you how he got into an accelerated program “fOR THOSE, yOU KNOW, wHO, uM, nEED TO GET THROUGH THINGS, fASTER,” and how his adopted troll family was very supportive of his choice, and how they adopted him even after he got into a car accident at the orphanage instead of abandoning him like some trolls would’ve done, and “i USED TO FEEL, uM, rEALLY BAD, aBOUT ONLY HAVING ONE LEG, bUT I DON'T ANYMORE,” and the entire time he’s talking he doesn’t take his eyes off your face. It’s almost unnerving.

He finally winds down, and you brace for the inevitable question, and he asks it. “Bro’s not here, so I went to an orphanage. Ran away to the circus of all places at ten. When I was sixteen a producer found me and signed me to his record; I told him I was twenty. Four years later I made my own label, and also starting dabbling in the stock market.” He doesn’t need to know ~~yet~~ that Sister Agatha caned as if the harder she hit the less influence Satan would have on you, with your crazy delusions and your freakish appearance. Or what you did to convince the producer to invest in you. Or how the controlling interest you have in video game corporations alerted you to the (re)development of Sburb, and how you and Karkat uneasily let it continue. That can come later. Telling him all this would just cause him unnecessary anguish, and with the exception of the very last thing, he doesn’t need to know.

He must see something on your face anyways, because his eyes soften and he hugs you, and you tell him he’s crushing you but you don’t do anything to get him off. Maybe you hug him back.

\-----

You don’t leave the hotel for the remainder of the weekend. You maybe hover ~~worriedly~~ threateningly whenever he moves towards the door but usually it’s just that he wants to go down for food or retrieve his laptop or something, and he seems strangely content with your company.

This is normal, you remind yourself. Because he loves you. You don’t see any ~~rational~~ reason to doubt it. You’re just a virtual stranger whom he came upon twenty-four hours ago and happened to remember a month in a previous universe in which you were inseparable. And you certainly don’t suffer from crippling depression and insecurity issues anymore. It makes perfect sense.

The way you lower your head onto his shoulder when you’re ~~making love~~ having sex has nothing to do with the way he doesn’t flinch when he sees your eyes. Nothing to do with the way he watches you as if you’re Jegus (what do you mean that’s a typo, Jegus has always been and always will be the name of the troll that founded that one religion). You should be looked at worshipfully. You’ve earned it.

Still, when you’re definitely not watching from the corner of your eye and see him wrinkle his nose at the thrice-worn clothes as he takes them into the bathroom, you take the chance to prove it.

“I’m gonna go get us some food.”

“oKAY,” He has this obsession with your shower, and were you not frantically trying to prove to yourself that you deserve this guy you would join him, but you are busy in the clothing store in the lobby picking out a nice ivory silk shirt and subtly pinstriped slacks. Of course you know his measurements. And his shoe size, you can’t wear nice duds like this without proper shoes. And a belt. And some nice wool socks.

He’s done with his shower and is curled up on the couch writing some paper when you come in with your armload of bags. You wordlessly give them to him, and when he pulls out them out one by one you look at him, his astonished face, and you think maybe this was a bad idea, you’re not trying to buy ~~his love~~ him or anything, maybe he’ll think you think he’s like a whore or something like in _Pretty Woman_ although you have to admit you have never seen tha t movie no matter how many times John insists it is simply _incroyable_ , Dave!

But he just puts them on, and they fit perfectly, and he looks good, especially the way he’s smiling as if he understands you better than ~~you want him to~~ you do, and he kisses you the exact same way he did before you bought him a brand new outfit, and you think maybe you didn’t buy his love after all, but he just wants to give it to you.

You can be okay with that.

\-----

He wears it to meet Jade, and you lean against the wall of her cramped lab and watch him as she explains to him the explanation for the whole “wrong timeline” thing.

“So sometime during the game somebody made a decision, and at that moment two universes split off, one in which they made it one way and one in which they made it another. The thing is that both timelines were stable, and so they just kept going and neither of them was terminated, and Lord English I guess thought he belonged in that one more than in this one, and while he was distracted we got through into this new universe which has been reset, possibly by Sburb, to foster our rather odd arrival, and we entered this universe through an offshoot of the real-ish sort-of alpha timeline!” She beams and you fancy you can see a layer of skin scoured off him.

“That’s also why,” you drawl, “we decided to let the development of Sburb go through. To secure the timeline.”

He looks shell-shocked. He drops his head into his head and moans, “i'M ONLY A LIBERAL ARTS MAJOR,”

“It’s cool, I don’t get quantum mechanics either.”

“Dave, I have explained it to you and to everyone else sooooo many times you could probably have just told Tavros yourself!”

“But he wanted to see what a scientist looked like. They don’t get out very often, you know, and my tanned Southern California physique just doesn’t cut it.” She is bronzed by enthusiastic hiking and sports, whereas you’re more likely to get your football in the basket avoiding all the hockey sticks that come your way than get tanned.

Anyways when Jade talks about physics she’s as adorable as a puppy (not that you would know). One who bites if interrupted. It’d be a shame to miss the performance. And you figure you can share Tavros more easily if you share him with Jade first.

You are right. As usual. When Karkat and John show up at Jade’s modest townhouse for dinner, you can see John tossing his arms around Tavros and Karkat grumbling at him without pangs of jealousy.

You can even eat dinner. And you can look at John and Karkat holding hands under the table without desolation wiping away your appetite, and it has nothing at all to do with the way Tavros holds your hand under the table while he talks animatedly to the others. You’re okay with the way Tavros slides into place in their lives because sometimes Tavros will lose his train of thought when he looks at you as he can’t believe ~~you’re his~~ he’s yours.

Because ~~you are~~ he is, you can deal with sharing.


	20. Chapter 20

You’re waiting for him outside his shitty apartment because he’d rather not appear like a kept troll (“tHAT’S NOT WHAT I SAID, i JUST, yOU KNOW, dISLIKE RUMORS, aND HAVING TO EXPLAIN MYSELF, aND I KNOW THAT’S NOT HOW YOU SEE US AT ALL”) and when he walks home from class he sees you and almost fucking skips over.

“hI DAVE, yOU LOOK GOOD,”

“Aw thanks, Chelsea, I just threw it on, didn’t even notice how amazing I looked in the fifty mirrors I have lying around for no reason at all.”

He punches you in the arm. “sILLY, iT’S JUST YOU’VE BEEN WEARING SUITS ALL WEEK, aND I WAS WONDERING WHY, cAUSE IT’S KIND OF HOT, aND T-SHIRTS ARE NICE,”

“Gotta blend in with the fraternity boys, you know. And I ran out of clothes. But I figure I smell enough like alcohol and weed to pass as a college student, what do you think.”

He darts a quick look around, and then his tongue is in your mouth, and before you have time to ~~react~~ really get into it he’s smiling that positively evil grin at you. “nOPE, dON’T THINK I CAN SMELL IT AT ALL,”

“Oh, you caught me. Never been to college. I figure everyone else’s smarts’ll make up for my lack of eddycashun, please try not to roll your eyes when I’m a little slow –“

He laughs, and reaches out his hand as if to take yours but drops it after he spots someone passing on the other side of the street. It’s cool. You get it. No PDA. You’ve always hated couples facesucking in public anyways ~~because they weren’t you and Tavros~~.

“sO, uM, wHY ARE YOU, uH, sTANDING OUTSIDE MY APARTMENT LIKE A STALKER,”

“Cause I’m stalking you.”

He narrows his eyes at you, but the corners of his mouth twitch. “eNOUGH OF YOUR SILLY SNARK, sTRIDER,,, hEH, aLLITERATION,”

“Nerd. I… have to go back to L.A.” His face falls, and you feel absolutely terrible. “Got a growing media empire to coddle, and my slaves don’t work properly if I’m not intimidating them with my presence. I’ll come up next weekend,” and nope, it’s hopeless, look at his fucking devastated face. He looks around again with those huge brown eyes and glomps onto you, and shit, you’re reconsidering this, maybe you can move operations up here –

And then he very quickly lets go and starts clearing his throat and shuffling around because an annoyed-looking troll just walked out of the building and is kind of staring at the two of you.

“hEY,” Tavros mumbles, and you already hate this guy. You wonder if he can tell you’re thinking about all the different ways you could kill him with a single sword-stroke. (It’s twenty-three if you count the techniques by name instead of movement. Bro didn’t teach you this. You hunted up lessons from anybody that’d take you seriously.)

“What are you doing.” And you guess he figures it out, because his eyes widen and he takes out his phone, presumably to snap a picture, mouth widening in a malicious grin. “I knew it, you’re fuckin’ _xeno_ , you pervert, just wait until the scholarship people see this –“

It’s tremendously satisfying to pull a blade from your sylladex and throw it at the phone, pinning it against a tree while the asshole stares at his unmarked fingers, then at the slender knife protruding from the screen.

“dAVE!”

You shrug. “Learned it from a friend. Now then,” and you turn to the douchebag, who’s gone an ashier gray than usual, “we’re going to be friendly to Tavros, aren’t we.”

He licks his lips. “Y-yeah.”

“Friends don’t threaten to take away their friends’ scholarship money through libel and slander. Because I have a friend,” and you wish it was Terezi, she’d love this, “whose sole pleasure is extracting the livelihood from libelous, slandering people in court. If anything were to happen to Tavros’ standing at this fine institution, I’d love to introduce you to her.”

“N-no, we’re cool, I got it.” He backs into the building, watching you until he turns the corner. You walk over and pull your knife out.

“dAVE, wAS THAT NECESSARY, i COULD’VE TAKEN CARE OF IT,” He looks like he’s not sure whether to be angry or amused. You hand him the broken phone.

“He was gonna get you kicked out.” ~~Because of you.~~ “I wouldn’t’ve hit him; you kind of gotta be precise when you’re tossing knives around, but I do have an excellent lawyer.” You watch him.

He looks at the phone, and shrugs. “i, uH, wAS GONNA MOVE OUT, aNYWAYS,,,”

“Oh?”

“yEAH, aND FIND A ROOMMATE WHO IS, uH, oKAY WITH YOU?” Oh. You’ve _got_ to start arranging for the move, it’s a good thing investing doesn’t require your presence, and there have to be recording studios here ~~cause you’re not leaving this guy, nope, no way~~.

“Yeah, that’d be good.” You shove your hands in your pockets because you don’t know what to do with your hands. He smiles, and you don’t know what to do with yourself.

“wANNA GO TO THE PARK?”

“Kay.”

\-----

There’s no one in the park, because it’s halfway through a Thursday and the ankle-biters aren’t out of school yet and the homeless people are panhandling somewhere busier. So you sit on the rusty swing and engage in sloppy makeouts with this barely legal troll (“hEY, iT’S NOT MY FAULT, yOU GOT TO BE BORN SEVEN YEARS EARLIER THAN ME,,, cHEATER,”). You idly flip off a horrified housewife who scuttles away before Tavros turns to see what you’re looking at.

“dAVE, wHAT OR WHO WERE YOU LOOKING –“

A high-pitched screaming sound just on the cusp of hearing interrupts him, and you both look around, and you manage to see the oak at the other end of the playground explode into flame. Tavros shoves you off the swing and falls on top of you as the shockwave hits and your hearing’s wiped out, followed by heat that makes your memories of Texas feel like the Arctic Circle in comparison.

Tavros looks at you and mouths something, and you think he’s asking if you’re okay, so you give him a thumbs-up – and then you realize Tavros was more likely to be hit by shrapnel, so you do a quick inspection with your hands as sound begins to slowly return. Nope, no sharp bits in him or suddenly twisted anatomy ~~oh god thank you~~ , so you accept his hand and pull yourself up. The fuck was that?

Still holding hands, you both venture towards the crater where the oak tree was. There’s kind of… a meteor?

Oh hell no.

“ _Oh hell no._ ” You realize you’ve got your hearing back, and Tavros does too because he looks over and says, slightly disbelievingly, “iS THAT A METEOR,,,”

“Fuck, _now?!_ ”

And then behind you the swing set dies a similar death, and you toss yourself at Tavros because hey, those are sharp rusty metal bits this time and you’d rather ~~die~~ get sharp metal through you than through the struggling, silently shouting troll under you ~~there’s a faint not-memory of Tavros run through with a gold double-headed trident, and it’s not your memory, not the alpha’s~~ and you close your eyes because you are afraid.

But you open them again a second later because fuck being afraid. You refuse to get up, and sound returns this time with a godawful ringing in your ears, and you wince as you realize Tavros is talking very, very loudly.

“dAVE, lET ME UP, cOME ON,”

“Gotta… make sure more shit doesn’t decide to explode on us, fuckass.” You get off anyways, and there is no pain, and you’re kind of glad you didn’t get hit by shrapnel, and neither did Tavros ~~and that’s all that matters~~. Tavros moves towards the swing set, avoiding the smoking twisted metal, and you watch him for a moment before finishing the trek to the former oak tree. Yup, it’s a meteor. Yeah, there’s a baby on it. You slide down the slope of the crater and pick the thing up. Definitely your eyes.

“You’re still an ugly bastard, Bro,” you tell the baby fondly, and it just looks at you. “Yeah, yeah, here you go,” and you retrieve the stupid tiny-sized anime shades you’d had made ages ago when you found out Sburb was being developed, and you ceremoniously shove them on his face. “We are going to have so much fun together.”

“dAVE, iT’S A WRIGGLER, aND IT LOOKS LIKE, uH, wELL, mE,”

Bro’s already clinging to you like a koala bear, and you just know he’ll be the best fucking ecto-slime son you’ll have the pleasure of being leeched off of by, and you climb out of the crater to see Tavros holding a brown grub with fun-sized horns, already figuring out how to wheedle things from you with its giant adorable eyes.

“Yeah. It’s Sburb.”

You look at each other for a long moment. You can already tell Tavros loves the grub as he holds it up and says, “i WILL CALL YOU RUFIO,”

You realize you’re laughing when Tavros joins in. Bro, the sneaky motherfucker, is gamely trying to climb up your shoulder as you hold out your hand to Tavros. Shifting _Rufio_ to his right arm, he takes it.

“I’ll make the preparations for moving my label up here tomorrow,” you tell him, and he smiles, and in that moment you can do motherfucking _anything_ , including raising fucking children.

“Shit, let’s be parents.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Eighty-Five Percent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/294299) by [Siadea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siadea/pseuds/Siadea)
  * [Tavros and the Author of 'Out Of His Depth' Make a PSA](https://archiveofourown.org/works/329032) by [in_fini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_fini/pseuds/in_fini)




End file.
